02.03 - For Better, For Worse

Just before Gail and Holly's twentieth anniversary, a body is found in the woods solves a thirty year old cold case, and has personal ramifications for them all.

It's the return of someone's favorite case...


"It's May, right?"

Vivian blinked at Rich. "Yes. It's May."

"So why is it cold?" He had on long sleeves and looked like he wished he had a jacket on.

Glancing at her arms, Vivian had on short sleeves and was actually enjoying the spring sun on her skin. It was cold, though, a fact Lily had commented on that morning when gardening. Vivian had stopped by to say hello to her grandparents, having missed them the night before with work and Brian going bed early, thanks to sleeping pills. He hated traveling. Smiling, Vivian pointed out the truth. "It's relative." The first cold snap, after a long summer, was the worst. By the second, she was generally used to it.

"Speaking of relative. Why is Fuller living with you?"

"C? He needed a place to stay and I kinda like having someone around." She shrugged.

Rich looked skeptical. "He kissed you."

"I broke his nose. We're good."

It was more complicated than that, she knew, but. Christian hadn't even asked her about it. Coming to the station early a few days before, Vivian caught him sleeping in his truck. When she pressed, he explained his landlord skipped town and everyone was evicted by the bank. Since C was sending money back to his mother, he didn't have enough yet for a deposit on a new place.

Naturally Vivian invited him to crash on her couch. That's what friends did. Right? It was Christian, regretting the kiss, who had balked. After all, he'd kissed her. But he'd apologized, and been sincere and honest about it. He knew it was stupid. And she forgave him, because no one was so rich as to throw away friends, as Holly would say. All she had to check was that she could take on a roommate (the lawyer said yes) and that was that. Christian took the guest room.

She didn't say any of that, though, as her phone rang. "Peck."

It was Dov. "Hey, kid, why the fuck are you at work?"

"Because recruitment is at an all time low?"

Her uncle scoffed. "The party is Friday!"

"And? It's Monday. Jesus, Moms are at work!"

"They're just avoiding your grandmothers."

"So am I." Elaine had gone a little psycho on the planning and Lily wasn't any better. They'd been waiting two decades to throw a gala for their girls, and they would not be denied. Gail had taken to muttering that Vivian should elope if she ever got married, and Gail would not hold it against her. "This is why I'm never getting married."

"Yeah, well I have to wear a tux, so shut up."

"Did you call to bitch about that?"

"No, I called to remind you that the playlist is your responsibility."

Vivian frowned. "Why are you... Is Elaine in your office?"

There was a pause before his answer. "Not anymore."

"Jesus, remind me to thank McNally for shoving me on park patrol."

"That's Sgt. McNally. And yeah, no shit."

"I'll send it to you after shift. I have it on my laptop."

"Thank you, kid. Remember, there's a for-fun shooting competition Friday morning."

While Vivian had her doubts at the 'for fun' part, she grinned. "And a home run contest after." Those small events had been the 'bachelorette' parties for her mothers. The stacked timing had been so Vivian could attend both.

"Right! See you!" And Dov hung up.

As Vivian shoved her phone away, she noticed Rich was eying her. "What?"

"What's all that about?"

"My folks' anniversary." She stretched her arms up over her head and yawned.

"You're not going?"

"I don't think I can get out of it." Vivian shrugged. "It's formal, too."

Rich wrinkled his face up. "For the anniversary?"

"They eloped the first time."

"Shotgun wedding?"

Vivian chuckled. "No." She paused and remembered what her therapist had said. Be a little more outgoing. "Actually it's-"

"Thank god you're here!" Two filthy teenagers came running up. "We're sorry!"

Sharing a look with Rich, Vivian studied their clothes. She asked them, "What's going on?" Rich frowned and looked between the kids.

"We were running."

"Okay," Rich said with a sigh. "And then what?"

"Chrissy's a little freaked out," said the boy.

"Uh, I'm a lot freaked out!"

"- We were just joking around."

"You were joking."

The teenaged boy looked at Vivian beseechingly. "She was running away from me, - and I chased her down there, and-"

The girl cut in, pointed off the trail. "We were running, and I tripped -"

"And she tripped, and she fell into that."

That? Vivian let Rich talk to them, stepping off the path and peering at the disturbance in the soil. The trail was new here. Five years ago, there had been a storm so bad it uprooted much of the park. Vivian recalled the change to a 10K she'd been training for. She looked back over her shoulder. The original trail was where a creek now ran.

But Chrissy, the girl, went on. "- And I fell into the puddle! And I landed on top of it. - And it was in my hair, and - "

Rich cut in. "Landed on top of what?"

The girl was not calm. "It was all in my hair!"

"Landed on top of what?" Rich was frustrated.

Vivian stepped into the brush and blinked. "Hey, Hanford..."

"What is it?"

The body was bones. Not too greasy, all things considered. Bits of an anorak covered the torso. The jacket actually looked well made. Not the high end expensive crap, but the stuff that worked. Huh. Old.

Vivian cleared her throat and looked at her partner. "Someone who's been here for a while."


Ducking under the tape line, Holly was struck by a sense of déjà vu. A body that was bones in the woods. A Peck watching the tape line. A pregnant feeling of cold rain in the air. She shook her head. "Hello," smiled Holly at the taller officer Peck. "Aren't you cold without your coat?"

"No, ma'am." Vivian rolled her eyes a little.

"And this isn't a setup?"

There was a blank look on Vivian's face for a moment. "Oh, God, no. No, for real there's a body down there. The femur was not intact, though. Someone broke her leg."

"Her?" Holly startled.

"Yeah, we got a partial ID from her wallet." Vivian flipped open her notes. "Something Mills. Said female. She'd be almost 60. We haven't run her yet, since the car's up there. But after you release the scene, we're going to check out her last known. The driver's license is really rotten. Half the numbers are missing."

"You're assuming the ID is the body." When Vivian sighed she looked just like Gail in that moment when someone burst her little detective bubble. Holly was hard pressed not to laugh. "It'll give us a start at least," Holly said, as a peace offering.

Still, even though Vivian was clearly a little miffed she kept a professional mien on. "Height roughly matches the ID and long bone deterioration matches examples from bodies left in shallow graves for over twenty-five years. Looks just like Longham's study."

Holly smiled. "Now that is better, Officer Peck. I trust you didn't compromise medical jurisprudence."

Vivian's partner, Rich the Abercrombie look-alike, snorted. "Please, Super Science Peck? I thought she was just puking up what she read for her presentation." Vivian's presentation had been on medical jurisprudence, much to Holly's amusement. She'd snuck in the back to watch and found it oddly familiar.

"Yeah what was yours on again, Hanford?" Vivian smiled one of Gail's more dangerous smiles. "The benefit of uniforms?"

Rich sneered at her, but they seemed to be having fun. "Uniformity in attire presents a face of relatable authority."

"Cult studies 101," Vivian drawled. "And at least my topic has been relatable to our work."

"I bet you stole the idea from your mom's papers-" Rich froze and, wide eyed, stared at Holly. "Ma'am, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, uh, imply you'd have anything to do with- I mean, I was just goofing and... Uh."

Holly smiled thinly. "Actually, to my surprise, Peck here hadn't actually read any of my medical journals or papers until the last six months." She gave Vivian a sly wink and her daughter smirked a little. "I'm not sure where I went wrong with her, to be honest."

Leaving the officers to banter, which they seemed to enjoy, Holly stepped across the line.

It had been a long time since she'd been in this part of the park. There had been a few more cases since her eventful meeting with the sarcastic Gail Peck, but mostly closer to the parking lots. The cases on this side of the park were few and far between. It wasn't the pretty part of the park.

"Anything interesting yet?"

Her field assistant, Ben, looked up. "Not really, except damn this woman was prepared."

"You ID'd the gender?"

"Based on the hips and the clothes. I'm pretty confident," Ben said. "But check this out. See how the parka has barely deteriorated? It's military grade."

Holly winced as she squatted, feeling her age. Her knees were not what they once were and the sharp pain was annoying. "Think she's military?"

"Or military adjacent."

Pulling on her gloves, Holly couldn't shake a bad feeling she got as she looked at the bones. Not that Holly really believed in vibes or woo woo shit, but after spending two decades knowing Celery Shaw, spending all that time with her because of her god-son Jerry (currently sixteen and graduating high school early, planning to study actual rocket science and work for the space program), Holly knew when to trust her instincts and listen to her subconscious.

Right now, her back brain was ringing all sorts of bells. There was something about the body, the way it was dressed, that was familiar. Military adjacent. Female. A little older than Holly (how had she gotten to be almost sixty!?). "Hey, Ben. What did the ID say?"

"Name was pretty much unreadable. I think I can use the ink lifting trick though, back at the lab. Right now, all I can make out is a B and a A in the first name."

B and A. B and A. Mills. Holly shook her head. "Prioritize that, will you? I have a bad feeling about this one."

"Sure thing." Ben went back to his work and Holly carefully lifted the leg bone. Broken. Rather brutally too. Who broke a femur? They were incredibly hard to break in the first place. Why would someone do that? Rage?

She sighed and reached for the skull. In an instant, her heart raced and her face heated up. Practiced fingers checked the skull again. "Ben... The left femur is broken. But is all of it there?" Holly put the skull down and looked back at the legs. "Are they both there?"

"Uh... Well that's fucking weird. The right femur is missing."

"Sorry .. What?" She stared at Ben. She'd heard the words but couldn't believe them.

"Missing. I've got knife marks on the hip and ... I guess this is the knee. Yeah, knee and tibia."

"Jesus Christ," whispered Holly. "Someone must have butchered her here." To kill someone, break their head open, and then rip them apart to get at their bones... Just when Holly had started to think her head basher case was annoyingly weird, it went into serial killer levels of disturbing.

"This is a crap case to pick up today," Ben noted.

"A bit, yeah." Holly stood up. "Officers, did you call homicide?"

Vivian spoke up. "Yes, ma'am. Zettel is sending over Connors."

She wanted to ask for Traci, but her sister in law had moved up in the world. That was as it should be. The status quo had to change to make room for new people like Vivian and Abercrombie. And Connors was good. Gail didn't like her, since she'd tried to take Chloe's locker her first day, a million years ago, but Gail was a hard sell on anyone. The Connors woman was methodical and, after years of application, stopped doing only what people told her to do.

Holly turned her attention back to the body. A semi shallow grave. Enough that it survived, say, twenty years without discovery. It was all about the location. Wasn't that why Robbie Robbins had been found ten years later? Thirty was a drop in the bucket compared to some.

It wasn't until she started the autopsy, a few hours later, that everything clicked into place. The location, the clothes, the name, and now the pins in the woman's wrist.

It wouldn't have been visible, probably, just a scar, but it reminded Holly of a story and a pleasantly drunk man on her couch, laughing with Gail about stupid things and exes and relationships. And a story about how camping with his then girlfriend had ended with her helping carry him to an ER, only for them to find that she too had broken a bone. They had matching scars from the adventure.

He had one from ankle surgery, she had one from wrist surgery. Oh god. Holly carefully picked up the wrist bone and looked at the pin. The style was right for the era. She felt a little cold. B. Mills. Pins. She wanted so much to be wrong.

"What's that?" Rich, who no longer puked in autopsy, leaned over, startling Holly.

"Metal pins," explained Connors. "They can use them to ID the body." The young detective eyed Holly. "Everything okay, Doc? You're usually lesson-central."

Holly sighed. "Oh." She looked over at the rookies (were they still rookies when their ties were cut? she'd have to ask Gail) and jiggled her head. "Sorry, sometimes I get distracted."

Her daughter smiled a little. "Did they always stamp numbers on pins?"

That was a good leading question. "No, but Gerhard Küntscher was working in 1939, in World War II, when he started doing this with intramedullary nails. That's when it's inside the bone."

Rich winced. "That sounds painful."

"It can be. The alternative is usually worse." Holly grinned a little. "Before that we had Kirchner wires, by Martin Kirchner back at the turn of the century. Er, the previous one. 1909." Shaking her head, Holly added, "Those can be removed. I don't really like them, myself. Anyway. Even in the 1980s we didn't really label all the pins and screws as well as we might have. This plate, though, that's going to be easy enough to identify. Especially if the surgery was local."

Flipping her memo book open, Vivian read for a moment. "Probably. We're waiting to see if the lab can get an exact address, because the drivers license deteriorated. But the weird thing was those notebooks. They're all mucky and nasty, but the paper didn't really degrade."

Connors spoke up, "It happens with some paper. We experimented with waterproof ink and higher quality paper when I was a rookie, but it didn't last."

"That's like the story of how the US space program spent millions of dollars trying to find a pen that wrote in zero-G. And then they asked the Russians what they used." Vivian was smirking a little as she told the story.

Her partner took the bait. "What did they use?"

"Pencil."

Even Holly had to smile and laugh a little. She'd told that to Vivian years ago and they knew it wasn't true at all. The space pen was phenomenal though, and Vivian was actually using one at work right now, twirling it between her fingers before she made a note of something.

"Besides the plate," said Connors, "What else can you tell us about the body?"

"Female, fully grown. I estimate she was in her mid to late twenties based on bone development and deterioration. Trace is going over her clothes, or what was left of them. I concur with the initial assessment that she's been there since the 1990s or early 2000s though." The more Holly confirmed, the more she felt sick to her stomach. Oh please no...

"Long time to not be found." Rich sounded skeptical.

Vivian did not. "Not a popular part of the park until the last couple years. Hell, I wouldn't go there alone at night."

"So why was she there at all?"

"And where is her leg bone?" Vivian pointed at the right leg. "Femur's missing?"

"Wasn't there." Holly sighed and rubbed her forehead in her wrist. "It's not misplaced, and we have the dogs looking for it now." She hesitated. "I speculate, based on the evidence, that it was removed by the perpetrator shortly after death."

All three cops looked stunned. "Okay. That is officially the creepiest thing," said Rich. He looked queasy.

"Sink," said Vivian, stepping back.

Rich twitched and then ran, vomiting. "Sorry." Holly couldn't blame him. It was nauseating.

Before she could reply, her computer dinged and Holly looked up at the report. The pin had been identified conclusively. Holly read the results and then frowned. She read it a second time. Then she compared the numbers herself. But it was what it seemed to be. The numbers did not lie. Evidence did not lie. "Officer Peck," she said softly, surprising all three cops. "Please call Inspector Peck— Gail right now."

"Uh, okay, ma'am." Without a question of why, Vivian pulled out her phone. Not even Connors dared to speak up. "What do I tell her?"

"Tell her …" Holly sighed and pushed her glasses up with her wrist again, swallowing the sickness she felt. "Tell her I believe we've found Bethany Mills."


Waiting for the DNA to be confirmed was the longest hours of her life. But Gail waited quietly until Holly called to tell her it was a match. Then Gail called Janet, John's girlfriend, and asked her to come by the station. And then, finally, she opened her door into the bullpen. "Hey. John."

Her former partner looked up from his desk. "I'm still deadlocked on the arson."

"Yeah. This is … not that." She gestured for him to come over and, curiously, John did. "You should sit down."

John blinked. "Okay, you never say that, Gail."

That was true. "Well. Today is a first. Ah. We— The lab has a positive ID on a body they found in the woods this morning." When John looked blankly at her, Gail added, "It's a match. For Bethany."

In the last twenty years, she knew John well. Maybe better than her own brother. She knew how much he took to heart the pain of his missing fiancé. She knew how it ate him still, almost thirty years later, to not know what happened to the woman he'd loved. The raw agony on his face was hard to stomach. Gail wanted to deflect it with her usual brand of bitter sarcasm, but this wasn't the place. John fell into a seat on the couch, years sucked out of him right in front of her.

"How long…?"

"Looks like she died shortly after she went missing."

John closed his eyes and exhaled. "Shit." He was deflating before her eyes.

Gail sat on the edge of her desk. "I called Janet. Didn't tell her why, but I think you need a ride home."

The man nodded. "Thank you." John rubbed his face with both hands. "Shit. Who did the autopsy?"

"Holly."

He looked surprised. "Oh. She wouldn't... Yeah. She wouldn't make a mistake."

Gail shook her head gently. "No. Not for this." Any other pathologist and Gail would have questioned the results. Maybe even pushed back on the case. But this was Holly. While Holly could and did make mistakes, she had gotten the plates ID'd before the bone work. She had taken her time and run the tests herself, not just letting the lab run them. She was certain. It was John's long missing fiancé.

"Fuck," muttered John. "I don't… God. I should call her father."

Even though it had been years, John still spoke with the Mills family. They'd never blamed him for Bethany's disappearance, and while at times their relationship had been estranged, they were forever bound by the loss. "I can do that," Gail offered. Calling the families was her least favorite aspect of her job. She regularly made John do it.

John shook his head. "No. No. I should call him. Todd's a friend." Haunted, John looked up. "Will you ... "

He didn't say, but Gail knew. Would she work the case? Would she, herself, take the case. "Yes." Connors would have to deal, but Gail had no qualms throwing her weight around on this one.

Nodding, John didn't say anything else. He sat in confused silence until Gail's watch buzzed to tell her that Janet was downstairs. Somehow she wasn't surprised that Vivian brought her up, letting the cook into Gail's office. "I'm sorry," Vivian said to John.

Again, John nodded. "Wait outside please," said Gail to her daughter. "John, stay here as long as you need, okay?" And another nod. Gail squeezed his shoulder and stepped out of her office.

Standing sentinel by her door, Vivian was silent but curious. The same could not be said of the rest of her staff. "Is it true?" Derek Mayhew, the first detective appointed after Gail and John, spoke up from his desk. "It's ..."

Gail sighed. "Okay. Yes. John's ... The body in the woods is of John's fiancé, Bethany Mills. It's an old, open, cold case in ThirtyFour. Call in Anderson, she'll be our liaison but I'm taking this one. We'll need to loop in the cold case squad at the big building."

There was a murmur in the room. She hadn't named a name or pointed at anyone to make the call on purpose. Moments like these were when you found who was next for leadership. Mayhew picked up his phone. "This is Det. Mayhew, Major Crimes. I need to speak with Sgt. Petrovitch in cold cases."

A moment later, another detective, a young woman named Trujillo, picked up her phone and called for Frankie Anderson. Pedro grabbed the electronic whiteboard and set it up on the wall. They fell into action like the well oiled machine she'd built.

It was a relief.

This was a room of people who were willing to do what it took for their brother in blue. This was why Gail stayed a cop. The force was the only place she'd been safe, before Holly at least. And here, on the third floor, Gail had built for herself and Toronto a place where they were all safe together.

The rest of her officers went to clear case loads to give those three the freedom to work John's case. It was just as it should be. "Come on, junior."

Following her to a conference room, Vivian looked confused. "Why am I here?"

"Because I want the firsthand report. Sit. Tell me."

Vivian sat and pulled out her memo book. She opened it, but didn't actually read as she recited her morning. From the couple arguing in the park to how she saw the bones and how they were arranged. She was sure that the body was laid there on purpose, left to be ID'd and staged, but it had fallen to ruin following an unluckily timed storm. "After the autopsy, I checked into the park history. There was a storm back in 2006 that tore it up, just like the one we had a couple years back. They totally redid all the trails and stuff."

Vaguely Gail remembered that storm. 2006. She'd not yet been a police officer. Back then, Gail was young and in college maybe? Maybe she'd just moved back from Europe? It was after Nick, that was certain. "So the maps?"

Her daughter smirked and flipped her memo book to the right pages. Vivian's ability to sketch was something that had shown up in college, probably directly related to dating Pia. Before that, Gail remembered being worried that the child didn't draw like everyone else. Her peers drew. Houses, families, things like that. Vivian just said she didn't want to draw anything and curled up with a book instead.

But there, in the memo book, were three accurate sketches of the park from two years before the first storm, how it was after, and then what it was like now. Vivian had labeled, in a neat hand she must have learned from Elaine, because God knew the rest of them didn't give a shit, where the body would have been buried in each location.

The body. How horrible it was to think of her friend's dead fiancé as 'the body.' Gail sighed at herself and flipped between the maps. "They had the old maps available?"

"No." As Gail looked up, Vivian looked smug. "They're still looking for the old maps. I used Google's TARDIS."

Gail laughed softly. One April Fools Day, Google had joked about how the TARDIS stood for 'time and rotational displacement in space' and applied it to their maps. For twenty-four hours, you could look at the world using Google Maps' satellite and street views for specific days going back for as long as they'd had maps. The only reason it stuck around was that someone in New York spotted a murder on one, reported it, and a cold case was solved. "Too bad they didn't do the heat maps back then."

"Global Warming mapping didn't help. I checked, but I guess ... " Vivian paused. "I guess she was too decomposed." She chewed her lower lip.

"It's always this weird when it's family," Gail said quietly.

"Why are we keeping it in house now? You always said that if you were too close to the case, you kept off."

The last time that had happened, it was a dead man in Lisa and Kate's condo. Turned out to be the maintenance man, garden variety heart attack, but two high priced professionals made it something the mayor wanted Gail's team on. Irony. She joked about how she'd always wanted to see Lisa behind bars again, which Kate had not known about.

But for the most part, that wasn't a problem. "Bethany is before I knew John. Before he worked at Fifteen. He was investigated and cleared over her disappearance years ago. And he's a cop. There really isn't a 'safe' way to dig into this, but we're the highest rated for internal investigations."

Vivian nodded. "It's just... He's family. What if he did it?"

Gail's gut knew John didn't. She sighed. "You know... A long time ago, a bomb went off in evidence here. Wasn't a bomb, really, but we didn't know that. What we knew was the last person to go into evidence was Steve. And he used Oliver's keycard. And he put a box in, that was at the epicenter of the explosion."

Eyes wide, Vivian asked the obvious. "But Uncle Steve didn't do that. Did he?"

"What if he did? What if I told you I covered it up, me and Frankie, and we made it look like an accident?"

Vivian looked slapped. Like the world just ripped itself out from under her. "But..."

Shaking her head, Gail closed the memo book. "I've already looked at the world where someone I love might be evil. Might do evil. I know the evil that men do, Viv. If John turns out to be one... I'd rather we stop him." Gail knew, firsthand, what an evil man looked like. She looked it in the eye and lost to it once. She'd seen the look in someone who gave up and someone who survived. And she never once saw a thing except survival in John.

Vivian swallowed and nodded. "They cut her leg off."

"I haven't read the whole autopsy. Peri or post mortem?"

"Post. Mom- Dr. Stewart said the leg was removed after she had been dead a while. They took one of her femur's though. That's creepy, right?"

"Entirely. Head bashed in, missing limbs. Reeks of serial killer." Gail stopped abruptly and stared into the distance. "Oh."

"Yeah, she's looking at that." Vivian scratched the back of her head, just like Gail and Steve did. "That is... That would be an insane coincidence."

"Not really. Every few years Holly thinks she's making headway on the case." The head-basher case had caused Holly some sleepless nights over the decades.

"But you just assigned John to help."

Gail pursed her lips. "At least that makes it unlikely he did it."

Matching the face, Vivian snorted. "Okay, fine. Now what?"

"Now. I'm going to autopsy to check on the results and see the body. You go get wonder boy Abercrombie and be our feet. Whatever Trujillo and Mayhew want, you do. You're their minions for the case."

Vivian frowned. "Because we found the body?"

"And only that." Gail smiled. "Don't go get an inflated head there."

"Good." Vivian grinned back. "Still miss me?"

"I do," admitted Gail. "Not as much since I see you every day. I heard Christian sleeps on your couch?"

Vivian rolled her eyes. "He sleeps in the spare room. His landlord got arrested for tax evasion."

"Yikes. Remind me not to recommend him for D."

"Lara's applying, I helped her." Vivian shoved her memo book back into her pocket. "She'll be good."

Gail smiled. "You okay?"

"Is that Mom or Inspector asking?"

"Mom. I'm pretty shitty at this whole not momming you at work thing, though."

"Yeah, you kinda are." Vivian grinned. "I'm okay, Mom."

"Good." Gail jerked her chin. "Go solve crime." With a snappy salute, Vivian went back to the bullpen and right up to Mayhew, saying she'd been assigned to the case. As she went to her car, Gail texted Andy to tell her that the case was in-unit, and she was stealing Hanford and Peck.

At least she could stack the deck in her favor.


"Lucy, I'm home!"

Vivian looked up as Christian bumped the door open. "Dude, you know that show is like a hundred years old."

Her accidental roommate looked shocked. "No way."

"1951, loser. Dishes are you tonight."

Christian did the math, counting on his fingers. "No. No way, that's not 100 yet."

"I said like." She went back to chopping vegetables. "Anyway. I'm making dinner, you don't have to eat."

Holding up his hands, Christian backpedaled. "Lucy never cooked. I'll be good, I swear."

"Liar."

"Man, why are you even here? Aren't you going to hang with Drs. Stewart?"

Vivian shook her head. "Moms had a rough day, so my grandparents have gone to dinner. Together. Just the three of them." She rolled her eyes. "Go shower. You reek." Christian saluted and hauled his gear into his room. Vivian heard the shower turn on.

It was weirdly nice having Christian around as a roommate. After he explained he'd been wrong and how he'd misplaced his feelings, things got better. Vivian had dated her best friend. She understood the ways your head and heart could get easily confused and project what wasn't there. Feelings of love and romance were not the same as friendship and love.

Still. When she'd asked him to move in, it hadn't been an easy choice. It was a complicated situation. If it was Olivia, would it be better or worse? Worse. Definitely worse. Olivia was complicated in the wrong ways right now. She had a boyfriend, she was in another country, and she had moved on. So should Vivian.

"So, here's my real question," said Christian, walking out of his room with only a towel on. "We are young, attractive, twenty somethings. Why are we home?"

"Because I have to work and, as everyone knows, I kill the life of the party. Also thanks for making sure I'm gay, can you please put pants on?"

Christian sighed. "You, Vivian Peck, need to have more fun. What about the cute firefighter?"

"Didn't get her number. Haven't seen her at the club in four weeks." And in truth, she had looked for McGann, Jamie, station 451. The woman was difficult to run into on purpose and she happened to work at the same station Shay did, which meant she couldn't just show up without Pecks finding out.

"You're not trying. She's a firefighter. Isn't your aunt a captain? Can't she help?"

"Shay, cousin, no. She's a Peck." And Pecks, in general, did not like firefighters. Not even their own family. Gail was somewhat more indifferent about it, but Vivian couldn't always tell what was Gail ribbing for fun and what was actually a sticking point. Her mothers weren't racists, but Gail was certainly elitist. Once she'd pointed out that Gail was really like Lisa in that way, and Gail had been vociferously unhappy about it. And the last thing she wanted was to ask Shay, who would tell Holly or (worse) Gail, about the cute firefighter. Especially since Shay was the captain of station 451. Fuck.

Looking thoughtful, Christian stole a slice of red pepper. "You think she'll care?" She was clearly Gail in that moment.

"Dunno. Not really in a rush to find out." Vivian sighed. "Anyway. Doesn't really matter. It was just nice to have someone interested in me."

"Dude, you're blind." Christian shook his head. "Lots of girls are into you. Guys too, not that you care. But they all think you're some kind of ice princess."

"Excellent, my carefully cultivated 'don't ask me about my personal life' is working." She smiled and tossed the vegetables into the pan. "Speaking of personal shit, are you sleeping any better?"

With a loud sigh, Christian went to the laundry machine. "Yes. Thank you."

When they'd spent a week in summer at the cottage, Olivia and Vivian sharing her room and Matty and Christian in Steve's, the scream from Christian had woken up the house. Gail had burst in to the boys' room and was there for the nine year old. She'd taken Christian out to the dock to walk and relax, sitting with him for hours. Of the kids, Vivian knew what had happened but not why. Night terrors were something she'd been familiar with after all.

But all she told their friends was that it was a bad dream. Even when she'd figured out that he was the baby who'd been kidnapped years ago. The stories from Andy and Chloe made sense all of the sudden. But that was his secret and she had hers and that was fine.

And he got the point. If her ghosts sat too close to make casual dating a thing, well. His kept him from getting serious. C was probably always going to have trust and control issues.

"Anyway, I'm serious about the work thing. I caught the cold case. We're supposed to be up to speed on the whole history by morning, and then we have to walk the route that they think she took. Figure out why she ended up in the park."

Christian scrunched up his face, taking his unfolded, but clean, laundry to his room. "We means you and Rich? Please tell me you're not cooking for two for him."

"Nah, cooking is like meditation." Gail had mentioned it shut up the voice in her head that badgered her self esteem. When Vivian had gotten older, and past the stage where she wanted to imitate what her adopted mothers did in order to feel more like them, she found that cooking was calming.

Her roommate came back out, in jeans and a green shirt. "Is it really John's ... Uh..."

"Fiancé? Yeah. DNA was solid."

Christian shuddered. "Jesus. Thirty years and you had to find her."

That part was weird. "I thought about how that was creepy all afternoon."

After work had been her regular therapy appointment, which was Vivian's other reason for cooking. Her brain needed downtime after an hour and a half with her doctor. When she'd explained that to Christian, that she needed the break once a month, he'd been willing to accommodate as best he could. So today, after work, he went to play basketball with the guys and she sat down on a couch and talked about things.

Her moms always said she didn't have to keep going. Vivian felt like she needed to, though. Sometimes her head was a confusing mess of memories and thoughts and feelings. Reflecting on how she'd found her uncle's dead fiancé, Vivian was walking into a night fraught with uncomfortable dreams.

"Did Gail know her?"

"No. It was before they met." It was before Gail was a cop even. She forgot, sometimes, that John was older. John was Steve's age. He'd known and worked with Frankie before coming to Fifteen, though, and joked that he could have just waited sixteen years and work for Gail anyway.

With a sigh, Christian nodded. "Do you need help?"

"Probably. But I'm going to lock myself in my room after dinner and become one with the files."

"Lucky you."

As promised, she locked herself in her room and spread out the files on her floor. Perching crosslegged on the bed, Vivian stared at them. This was how Holly did things. Look down. Find patterns. She'd already done the Gail thing and read them front to back. But Vivian wasn't Gail and didn't have that fucking annoying recall (seriously, she'd learned never to say something off the cuff to Gail if she didn't want to hear it back later before she was ten).

Okay. So what did she know? Bethany Mills had come home at a little after three on a Tuesday. It was cold and wet, and she'd been at university. John hadn't expected her home until later, and was mid-decoration of their shitty apartment. He was proposing. Bethany came in, her best friend with her, and John stupidly just held out the ring. She said yes.

Four days later, she said she needed to think and was going to her friends, but she loved him. The friend, Sarah Shiffman, said that Bethany came over and talked about how she was having second thoughts. Not about John, just about marriage. Bethany loved John, but worried they were rushing into marriage because her parents wanted it. Then she said she was going home to talk to John...

Bethany Mills never made it home.

They searched the obvious path home from Shiffman's, as well as the non-obvious. They searched the paths John said that Bethany liked. She was an outdoorsy person, after all. She loved hiking and camping. That explained why Bethany was found in the park.

Vivian groaned and rubbed her face, flopping back on the bed. "I hate this."

Of all the things Vivian wanted, being a detective in homicide was clearly not going to be one. Digging into motives and thoughts and ideas was not fun. And neither was death. Homicide came too late. Guns and Gangs worked with losers. Undercover... Well that could be fun, she had to admit.

Picking up her phone from her nightstand, she texted Holly.

How do you deal with always working the end?

Her mother didn't reply right away. Vivian sighed and sat up. "Okay, Peck. What happened next? Goes for a walk in the park to clear her head?" She tried to picture having second thoughts like that and failed. Not that she'd ever had first thoughts about marriage or anything like it, but even the story of how Elaine and Bill had gotten married did not include doubts.

What was she doubting about marriage? The long term commitment? They'd read Bethany's Facebook account and found nothing useful there. She changed her status to engaged, posted a photo of John and her, flaunting the ring, and then ... Gone. Her mothers had never run away like that. Well. Except for the fight at the Penny, but that wasn't after five years of dating.

Her phone buzzed.

It's never easy. But it's better than dealing with the people while they hurt.

Vivian sighed. She wasn't that much like Holly. No more or less than like Gail, at least.

I don't like coming in this late. I feel like I can't do anything.

You can find the truth. Give people closure. Answers.

Does it help?

Me or them?

Both?

Her phone rang. "You okay, honey?"

Vivian flopped back on her bed. "No. I can't figure out why someone would ... Vanish. Why did she leave John?"

"This is really more of a Gail question," said Holly slowly.

"Mom hates people, Mom. How the hell does she get motive?"

Holly made a noise. "Oh. I see." Her mother laughed in an unfunny way. "Okay. You know your Mom and I broke up once."

"Sure, Aunt Lisa told me about that."

"And you know why?"

That gave Vivian pause. "Mostly? Mom's feelings were hurt and you didn't back her up when Lisa was a bitch, and Mom was kinda immature about how she handled it?"

Holly chuckled. "I wasn't much better. I was too dismissive of Lisa, and forgot how it felt to be the new lesbian on the block. We were both insecure and unsure of ourselves. I was in love with a straight girl-" Vivian's laugh cut her off. "Shush. Your mother was, for all practical purposes, straight until she met me. And yes, that worried the hell out of me. So when Lisa said I should get in and get out before anyone got hurt, I seriously thought about it."

What? Vivian's eyes widened. "You thought about breaking up with Mom?"

"Before I broke her heart, or she broke mine. Of course, it was too late, but how could I know that?" Holly sighed. "Point is when you're young, you worry about things that grown up you thinks is stupid."

Interesting thought. "I know why Mom hates marriage. Did you?"

"Oh. Not really. I just grew up in a world where lesbians couldn't get married. So I never thought it was a possibility. By the time it was, I had been saying no for so long, it was a paradigm shift."

And by contrast, for Vivian's whole life, marriage had been legal for homosexual and heterosexual couples. "Huh. Well that sure isn't why Bethany wasn't sure about marriage."

"No, probably not," agreed Holly. She could hear the smile. "Anyway, as your mother explained it, you're not supposed to solve the case."

"Not trying to. I'm supposed to retrace Bethany's steps, go where she went. Figure out how she ended up where we found her. And ... It's really hard. I can't understand why."

Holly hesitated. "Honey, why did you text me and not Gail?"

The way Holly asked, Vivian knew what she meant. It wasn't her mother being dismissive of her questions, nor was it trying to pass a buck. Holly was trying to get Vivian to think about why she wanted to ask Holly about a case and not Gail, who already knew more about the motives. Clearly she wasn't asking about motive and criminal behaviors.

Vivian gnawed her lower lip. "Okay. So... It's a people thing. Mom hates people. She gets criminals but vics that aren't kids, she's not super sympathetic."

With a soft laugh, Holly agreed. "That is entirely true."

Vivian took a deep breath. "You're not a people doctor because you feel for them. And it hurts too much. So ... I kinda thought ... It felt like a you conversation?"

Her mother made a noise of understanding. "Okay. You should just keep thinking of that. Why it felt like me. And try to get some sleep. You'll be on your feet all day."

"Yeah." Vivian smiled. "Thanks, Mom."

"Any time, sweetie."

Hanging up, Vivian stretched across her bed and stared at the ceiling. Why did she call her mother? Why Holly? Did Bethany feel like Holly? Kind of. She was sporty enough. What had she been wearing? Rolling over, Vivian scrambled to the end of the bed and grabbed her tablet. Modern notes, modern device. The recovery report had her notes as well as a full catalogue of her personal items.

Shoes, high end cross trainers. Normal jeans (Guess?). Remnants of the shirt and sweater were cotton and wool. It matched the photos Vivian had seen. Bethany was practical. She had a parka, appropriate given the weather, gloves, and notebooks.

Those were being logged into evidence now, but were heavily degraded due to the elements. That they were recoverable at all astounded Vivian. Actually, that bordered on unbelievable... She tapped the information on the notes. A full spec analysis was being done, but the quick tests showed it to be non permeable paper.

Who the fuck used non permeable paper?


"RiteRain field books," sang Holly, proudly. "R-I-T-E."

The collection of cops (two Pecks, Hanford, and someone named Mayhew) stared at her. Gail's lips curved into a smirk. "RiteRain? Two Rs? Who the hell came up with that?"

"A company called Pierson, Ericsonn, and Lief. They were military contractors back in the 70s for the US and Canada. Before that they were working with the Fischer company." Holly stopped and grinned, waiting for enlightenment to dawn.

It hit her daughter first. "Oh!" She fumbled and pulled her own memo book out, unclipping her personal pen. A Fischer Space Pen. "They made non-permeable paper for military grade field notes, so it could withstand extreme weather and not lose data!" Vivian turned to Rich, "Old school tough books."

Rich frowned. "She had waterproof notebooks? Who the fuck does that?"

"The daughter of an army Colonel," said Gail softly. "Col. Todd Mills, fought in Afghanistan twice. Actually knows Constable Collins." Gail rubbed her chin. "How are your lab rats at getting the data from the notebooks?"

Holly raised a finger. "Amazing, but it's time consuming. Apparently no one's ever tried to recover the contents after his many years of exposure. I had to call the company this morning and they sent me an expert."

While patient, Gail gave her a look asking Holly to summarize. "ETA?"

"I estimate at least three days for everything." Before any of the cops could protest, Holly quickly added. "So! I prioritized finding the most recent information first and had them concentrate on that. I know. I'm awesome."

Gail's hands moved, signing 'nerd' quickly. "Thank you." She smiled. "Okay. Hanford and Peck, retrace her steps. Mayhew, stay at the lab. Anything Dr. Stewart or her minions need, you get. Pronto."

There was a chorus of "yes, ma'am"'s from the other cops and they departed. Vivian gave her mothers a quick side-look, a slight widening of her eyes. Rolling her eyes at Vivian, Gail lingered. "You didn't mention anything about the leg bone."

Holly winced. "That's a different kettle of fish. I don't have the other end of the marks to compare it to, and condyles aren't generally known to be identical or even mirror images. Even identical twins have differing ones, which makes sense when you think of growth as subjective and not predetermined." When Gail looked confused, she amended. "The knobby bits on the end of your bones. Condyles." Holly picked up a pen and drew on her whiteboard. "Here's the femur. Someone sliced through the muscles and tendons on Bethany's hip and knee joints, based on the nicks on the remaining bone."

"That was in your autopsy report." Gail didn't sound accusatory or annoyed. She was just stating the facts.

"Right. But this goes back to the other case. The damage on Bethany's skull was indented irregularly, or so I'd thought. It matches the same kind of damage I've seen in the other similar head bashing attacks."

"You mean by the knobby bits on legs?"

"Precisely. This one, the one closest to the other knee, is called the medial femoral condyle. The outer one is the femoral. Obviously different shapes."

Dryly, Gail agreed. "Obviously."

Holly smirked. "Hush. The wound on Bethany's head shows the distinct shape of a femoral condyle. You can see here..." She flipped open her files and tapped the skull X-ray. "It has the curve here."

Leaning over, Gail squinted and then put her glasses on. "It looks bigger than her own knobby bits. What's the size range?"

"That one is a horse's leg."

Gail's head snapped up, glasses slipping down her nose. "What the actual fuck? You mean her leg is the one that they used to bash people's heads in?"

"Evidence suggests it. Can't tell for sure without a sample, but I measured the size of her remaining femur and it's not inconsistent with the damage on six other attacks."

"I hate when you say it like that," snarled Gail.

Holly beamed. "You're adorable when you wear your reading glasses."

Gail shook her head and tucked the glasses into a pocket. "Not inconsistent means you need ... an exemplar?"

"I'd rather have the horse bone, frankly. We managed to use the impressions and scans from all the injuries to come up with a pretty good model."

"Ooooh. Did you get to use the 3D printer?" Gail was as gleeful as a child.

So was Holly. "I did! They made a quarter sized model as a trial. Wanna come to the hospital and see it with me?" It would take too long and cost too much to make a full sized model that would actually work (one she could use to make actual, full force impressions with), more was the pity. This was her proof of concept.

Gail's phone beeped. "I do, but ... I need to check on the other end of this. Swarek is interviewing John in half an hour."

"Swarek?" Even though she didn't work with him much, and even though it had been a number of years since their social circles had intersected, Holly still did not like Sam Swarek. The fact that he bothered young Vivian for reasons she'd not been able to explain was enough.

"Limited choices," sighed Gail. "John's like me. Find me someone who doesn't know him. Swarek's high ranking enough, reliable ... Well, reliable enough." Gail made a face. "Anyway. I got IA to clear him. He's been outside Fifteen long enough that he's an outsider. He was in Fifteen long enough that he knows us. It's about as perfect as I can get."

Holly scowled. "But you're supervising?"

"Well. Something good has to come out of me outranking that son of a bitch." Leaning in, Gail kissed her cheek lightly. "Thank you. For the lab stuff. It helps."

"I'll text you if I get anything from the bones."

"You're the expert, Dr. Stewart!"

Watching her wife leave, Holly smiled. They had tried so hard to keep personal and professional separate. It was never going to work since, for both of them, their jobs were a huge part of their lives. After some years of struggle, Holly had simply asked Elaine how she'd made it work with Bill. After all, they'd been in love once. And regardless, there were a million Pecks around.

Her mother-in-law's advice was to accept that the borders would be crossed. Try to carve time out where they didn't let work intrude on their relationships, and be honest with each other when they felt it was too much. Oh. Speaking of personal and professional intersecting... Holly picked up her phone and tapped Elaine's number.

Elaine spoke right away. "If it's about Ms. Mills, I've already heard from Steven."

"Sorry," Holly said and winced.

"Let me know by tomorrow what you think the status is. We can postpone the party, but Gail would cheerfully tell me it'll take a week to get out of it. You, sweetheart, will be honest."

It was funny. Holly couldn't remember when Elaine had started calling her sweetheart. Maybe it had been when Gail went missing. She'd only realized it much later. It wasn't until the time that Vivian had dislocated her shoulder falling off a gymnastic something or another, doing a trick she'd been expressly forbidden from attempting without supervision, and Holly had lost her mind shouting at her daughter. That was the day Elaine had hauled both Gail and Holly out of the room and sat them down until they calmed.

Once they were willing to listen, she explained how teenagers did things, trying to find their limits, trying to see who they were and what they could do. And the terror they were feels was normal. Then Elaine went and explained to Vivian that her mothers were screaming because they were scared and they loved her. And her strange, smart, daughter, a little loopy on the muscle relaxants needed to fix her shoulder, had snorted. She'd sounded just like Holly being dismissive over stupid explanations of this she knew. Vivian had said that was obvious. Of course her mothers were crazy but she loved them too.

So now, of course Holly was going to be honest with her mother-in-law. She owed a lot to Elaine. "I don't think we'll solve it unless someone has a genius moment." Holly paused. "You remember that unsolved case with the people bashed in the head and left for dead by cars?"

Elaine snorted. "Of course. That's been going on since before I was an officer." Then she paused. "Oh dear. But Ms. Mills was found by a tree?"

"Yeah, that part is weird. But one femur is missing, and her other is broken. Looks like the perp managed to fracture it while removing, so my supposition is that he broke it to cover it up."

"That seems stupid. You might notice the other one missing."

"Perhaps they're hoping we think the other was also broken and misplaced over the years due to erosion and animals."

Elaine made a noise. "Lucky them that the smartest pathologist Toronto has had in fifty years happened upon their case."

For the first time in years, Holly blushed over the praise. And then she deflected. "Who did you have fifty years ago?"

"Walter Reese."

"He is quite legendary," admitted Holly. He'd been one of her idols. "Did you work with him?"

"I did. He lived up to the legend. Though I suspect in another fifty years, your name will be spoken with similarly hallowed phrases."

"See, now you're just sucking up, Elaine."

There was an impishness to the reply. "Can you blame me? I can't curry favor with my children so I have to use you and Vivian."

"Annnd now we're back to honesty," teased Holly.

"Honestly, do you think you'll be able to take your vacation?"

Holly sighed and looked at the files on her desk. "Honestly. Yes. Either we'll have an answer of some type by Friday morning or Gail will be threatening people and the world will thank you for making her take a long weekend."

"I often found a long weekend helpful. Bill and I used to go to the cottage for that."

Blushing, Holly could not admit the same. "That's a good idea."

Elaine was clever, though. She had two children and Gail's sense of humor was certainly related. So was her cavalier attitude towards sex. "Gail was started up at the cabin," announced Elaine, blithely.

After twenty years, Holly was used to it. "I thought she was the accident."

"She was. Bill was about to go undercover, so we went to the cottage. Al was babysitting Steve."

Holly shook her head. "As delightful it may be to think about how my wife was conceived at the cottage," she said dryly, "I'd like to put my due diligence on my case."

Her mother-in-law laughed. "If I don't hear from you, I'll see you Friday at six PM. Please remind Gail she promised to wear a dress."

"No problem there." Holly loved Gail in a dress. "She picked out a nice red one."

"Thank you, dear. Solve crime. Be amazing. I'll handle everything else."

"Will do." She hung up and laughed at the normal farewell a person got from Elaine. All this time and she still wasn't terribly affectionate.

Looking at the files, Holly turned her mind back to work. Why was this the only case without a car?


The match Gail eventually found was unexpected. Not the injury but the circumstances surrounding it. "Found your vehicle, Doc," Gail said into her phone.

Her wife snorted. "Gail, I told you there isn't a single death via head injury case that time frame in any database."

"You looked the wrong way. I, on the other hand, looked for all crimes involving cars, Vespas, and bicycles based on this awesome theory the best doctor in the nation had. And what we have is a survivor."

She could hear Holly's muttered curse. "Are you shitting me?"

"Nope! And young Peck had a theory I'm letting her run down."

Holly snorted again. "You know, honey. I get why you call me by my title at work, but calling our daughter 'Young Peck' is not working for me."

Gail rolled her eyes. "Well excuse me for not having Oliver's talent for nicknames."

"I told you to buy that book of Dad Jokes when we adopted," teased Holly.

"You're the one listed as her father, nerd," Gail sassed right back. She grinned. Bantering like this was a familiar comfort. "Don't you want to hear how brilliant our child is?"

Holly laughed softly. "Fine. What genius did our girl do?"

"She took my list of all car, scooter, motorcycle, and bicycle related crimes in a four mile radius for the day Bethany went missing, handily cross referenced it with all hospital records of head injuries, and came up with four possible victims."

"So far this sounds like you did the genius."

"Doesn't it? Except junior saw a pattern we all missed. The make of car."

Holly cursed down the line. "Are you kidding me? The last car we found was a damn Barracuda! What pattern could their be?"

"Remember your theory about multiple killers?" Gail beamed and tapped enter, sending the information to her wife. "Little asshole matched up some cars to killings, which gave her an idea of exactly which one of the fifteen possible people was the victim. Finds a kid who was mugged on his Vespa, which she matched up to another crime a week before on the same make and model of scooter. Then she tells Mayhew that obviously the situation had to be Bethany saw the attack in progress, tried to intervene, ran, got hit, went down, and was killed."

Her wife was silent for a while. "Does her theory explain why the femur was taken?"

"She thinks the original horse bone broke in the tussle. Which matches your data that it wasn't used in the last thirty years." Gail had gone over that herself, multiple times.

"Now .. That is interesting. The bones would be weakened by repeated uses. I wonder how many attacks before it fractured. We can test that. And if the bone shattered or other broke on impact with Bethany's skull then the damage would be more shallow... Okay, I'll call you back! Love you."

"Love you to, nerd. Remember to eat lunch."

"You too. Bye." A jubilant Holly hung up.

Gail shook her head. Giving Holly a bone to gnaw, literally, would keep her busy for hours. And it may have been what they needed to find some answers. "It was pretty clever," she said to herself.

Fresh eyes were often a godsend to a case. Her daughter, who claimed to have no inclination to detective work, had a grasp of human understanding that gave her insight. Rage, misdirected anger, was something Vivian internalized at a young age. It wasn't that Vivian couldn't be a good detective, it was that she probably didn't want to spend her days mired in that kind of activity. Even if Vivian had never verbalized the feeling in those words, Gail understood it now.

The knock at her door caught her attention. "Come on in, Swarek."

"That's creepy."

"I work on it." She kicked her chair around, facing the door. "Thank you. For ..." Gail waved a hand.

Swarek leaned in the doorway and nodded. "Welcome. It's ... You know I can't do much for you guys. But I can do that." He meant Fifteen and Gail knew it.

"You won't hear it from them, but it's appreciated."

"Yeah." He scratched his chin and looked awkward. There was clearly something on his mind. Gail looked up at him and waited. Maybe she could put off conversations about McNally for an hour. "Is Steve really retiring?"

Okay. Not what she expected. "Summer. Yeah." Gail leaned back and looked up at Sam. "He was in your class?"

"Yeah. Noelle was the year behind us. It's weird to ... We're all going." Sam looked uncomfortable. "John was in between us." Sam gestured between themselves. "And John's already thinkin' he'll retire. It's funny. Y'know?"

The math jumped into Gail's head. Frankie was also in their class and, like McNally, a few years younger than the Peck she'd graduated with. Similarly, Sam was younger than Steve, though by less. Frankie had never gone to college. Sam had done two years. It threw you off. She thought of all those people as being her age because they hung out and worked together.

"Yeah. It is." She sighed. "John keeps saying he'll retire because of age. Because Viv's a cop. Because his mom died." She looked past Sam at John's desk. "But he's still here."

"And you?" Sam tilted his head. "You're still here."

"Nowhere else to be."

Swarek laughed. "That ain't true. Maybe it was when you were a rook. Maybe when you were younger and stupid..." He smirked. "Remember when we sat and chatted in my truck because everyone hated you?"

Gail blinked and laughed. "Right and McNally was sure we were screwing, and hated me more. She thought I slept with Callaghan too." Rolling her eyes, Gail propped her feet up in her desk. "Good times."

"They hated me too."

"You dumped the perky girl guide," pointed out Gail. "And do not blame me on the divorce fallout."

"Never would." Sam looked around the office. "Point is... The building, three whole divisions, they fucking jumped because you needed them. Me included."

Gail frowned. "Only person I asked for a favor was you."

"I know. That don't count since I owed you." When Gail frowned more he smiled. "Ollie told me about the surgeon. The heart guy."

The air sucked out of Gail. "I'm going to kill him."

But Sam laughed. "Y'know I'm the only one you have to ask. Everyone else, they see you doing the right thing. Day in, day out, you fought back and kept on. And now? You do something and everybody sees someone who didn't let the shit of being a Peck, nearly getting killed, taking her folks to the cleaners over corruption, getting her brother cleared on bomb charges... They see you never let anyone's opinion of you, good or bad, stop you from doing right."

She stared at him. "That sounds damn opportunistic of me, Sam."

"Yeah? Makes you sound like the kinda cop I want to have my back." He jerked his chin at her.

It was uncomfortable. Gail frowned. "I'm not sure where you're going."

Sam looked up. "Yeah. I know." He sighed. "Congratulations. You and the doc. Twenty. I... It's funny as hell, you being the success story, the one who got it right. But. I'm real proud that I get to say, when folks ask me if I know Inspector Peck, that I cut her tie off when she was a rook." Sam smiled the annoying smile he had, the smarmy one that Andy liked and Gail hated. He pushed off the door frame. "I'm real glad I got to work with you as long as I did, Peck."

Stunned, Gail could only nod and watch Sam leave.

If she didn't know better, she'd swear he was going to eat his gun.

It took her a long time to realize that was the only present Sam Swarek could give to her. To the woman who forcibly destroyed his first marriage and directed him to his second. To the woman who'd never, publicly, taken one side or the other in the Division when he left. To the woman who quietly found him a safe place somewhere else.

This was his thanks, sincere and honest, for letting a fuck up have a chance.

She sighed and pulled her phone out as she headed home that night.

You're a total dick, Swarek.

You're welcome, Peck.

Gail smirked and shook her head. "Asshole."


While Vivian had the heart of the case, Christian, Lara, and Jenny were on dog detail. She'd made the map for them, detailing out what she determined the most likely path was for Bethany, leaving her friend's house, the passing of a mugging gone wrong, and the probable route through the woods. Because Bethany would have run.

And while Jenny teased her about the map, Lara had been impressed. She'd wanted to know where Vivian had learned that particular skill. Sgt. McNally had been impressed too, letting her know it would go in her review. In a good way. How stupid. Just because she could draw a straight line.

"Hey, I know you're annoyed, but can you not kill us?" Rich had his hand braced on the frame of the car.

"I have the record high for the driving course," snapped Vivian.

"I know. But I don't want to puke before we interview Mr. Cage."

Vivian glanced over and sighed, slowing down. "Sorry."

"All good. Didn't know you had moods, Peck."

She shot Rich a look. "Seriously?"

Her partner smiled. "I mean, you have a major chip on your shoulder. Which, having met your relatives, I totally get."

"Do you even have a point?"

"I do, I do. It's this. You are in a bad mood and I don't know why. You figured out an awesome theory that the Ds and the lab loves. You made a killer map. You're kinda godlike now. So why the mood?"

Vivian frowned and pulled up at the light. "Rich. What makes you think we're going to solve this case?"

"Uh. By your parents anniversary?"

"No, I mean ever. It's been twenty two years that my Mom, Dr. Stewart, has been looking into this case. Two-two. There's no way it's getting solved just because we found the dead body of my other mom's partner."

"Come on," said Rich, disagreeing. "You don't think now is the time we're heroes and solve it?"

"I think my family's about to have the most fucked up, schadenfreudian weekend possible." She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. "Okay, take it this way. You think this guy's really going to remember anything about who hit him on the head that long ago?"

There was a weird, abnormal silence from Rich. "I don't think I'll forget Bobby's face," he said quietly.

Vivian winced. "You know, I'm a fucking expert at shoving my feet in my mouth," she told Rich, apologetically.

"Yeah, ya are." He shook his head. "It's weird what you remember."

On the tip of her tongue, Vivian had the words 'I know.' And they died on her lips. She sighed. Not that she really wanted to tell Rich, but it was interesting to see that barrier was still there. "What do you remember?"

"I don't remember it hurting. I mean, it did in the hospital."

"You sure complained a lot like it hurt."

"The smoke hurt. The shot... No. I think my brain just said fuck it and stopped processing." He shrugged. "You ever break a bone?"

"Does my nose count?"

"Really?" Rich laughed. "That's all? With all that monkey shit you do?"

"I've been lucky." She'd sprained, pulled, tweaked, bent, bruised, dislocated, and otherwise banged herself to hell, but Vivian had managed not to break anything. The closest was the time the kid on her soccer team laid her out flat and Gail flipped out, thinking Vivian had been knocked out. Or the time she'd taken a field hockey ball to the small of her back and been in agony for a week. Even the dislocated shoulder was normal-gymnastics related. The vault was a mother fucker, and also something she'd not supposed to have been doing without a coach.

"How have you never broken a bone?"

"Had my appendix out? And I dislocated my shoulder." She shrugged. "I did get shot in the vest. That hurt."

The radio squawked, interrupting them. "1507, Dispatch. I have an update from the lab for you."

Rich leaned over and picked up the handset. "Dispatch, 1507. Hanford. What's up?"

"Dr. Stewart says 'bone chips.'"

Vivian laughed and slapped the steering wheel. "Awesome."

A little confused, Rich eyed her but replied. "Copy that, Dispatch." He then asked Vivian for clarification. "Wanna explain that one?"

"She found bone chips from the horse femur in the remains."

"Oh! So you were right?"

Vivian shrugged. "It was logical..."

"Why didn't she text?"

"She probably can't find her phone right now." Vivian shrugged. "Or she knows we're en route." Actually they were nearly done. Vivian pulled up to the residence and frowned at the sign. Bedford Health. Why did she know that name? Cage had lived here for eight years. He was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, but it wasn't centered in the communication regions. Simply put, Cage didn't talk because he didn't want to, or he had a block.

As they walked inside, a cantankerous, ancient, man shouted at her. "Peck!" Both Rich and Vivian startled. The man was pointing at her. "You're the sarcastic blonde's kid!"

"Seriously?" Rich stifled a laugh.

"Hush." But that reminded Vivian and she turned to the manager. "Did you guys get robbed like twenty years ago?"

The manager, a tired man, nodded. "We did... Mr. Peterson, please don't offend the police officers."

"I can't offend that one! She'll just roll her eyes. Look, Maryanne, it's her."

Rich was still nearly laughing. "How..."

"They had a tour bus robbed. It's ... Uh. I met them at a funeral like a decade ago." She was a little surprised to see some of them were still alive. "It's okay, sir. Is Mr. Cage ready?"

"Almost." The manager looked lost.

"Why don't you get him? We can wait here."

The manager, relived, hustled off. "Sorry," said the old man. "The management are puppies. Come here, little Peck."

Rich gave up and laughed. Vivian elbowed him and walked over. "I'm really sorry, sir, but... I don't remember you."

"Pish posh, you were what, twelve? And all of us old guys look the same" He beamed. "Archie. I'm the one who got Oliver the suit."

Viviana eyes widened. "Oh! Wow. I don't think I knew your name, sir."

"It's Archie, please."

Grinning, Vivian nodded. "Archie."

"Look at you, Officer Peck. You must make your moms proud."

"I try," said Vivian with a shrug. "Oliver's still married, by the way."

"I was going to ask." The old man laughed. "Let's send him a salfie!" Vivian obliged, taking a photo and sending it to Ollie, grinning. "Why are you here? Someone get robbed again?"

"Nah, we have to talk to Mr. Cage about something that happened a long time ago."

Rich looked panicked. "Hey! We can't tell 'em about that!"

The collected elderly folk laughed. "Who are we going to tell?"

Someone else joked, "Don't tell Carole! She tweets everything!"

Vivian smirked. "Rich it's cool."

Archie eyed Rich and then asked, conspiratorially, "Is he a rules guy."

"The last time he wasn't, it was a messy thing," replied Vivian. "And he has a point. I can't give you details."

Waving a hand, Archie leaned in. "You won't get any from Cagey. He got whalloped in the noggin when he was your age." Archie rapped his head. "Can't say shit."

"Doesn't say anything," corrected another little old man. "He can talk. Remember when Martin stole his cupcake?"

As Archie made a noise of understanding, Vivian felt excited. Jackson Cage had been hit in the head. They knew that. But a man who didn't talk much unless he was angry meant he was a man of passion. He was possibly a man stuck in the past. She listened as the residents told them about how Cage was a man of few, if any, words. Mostly he growled and snarled.

The manager came back in and explained that Cage was in his office, so they went in and took seats across from him. "Hello, Mr. Cage," said Rich, smiling.

Jackson Cage looked away and said nothing.

After a moment of hesitation, Rich went on. "We were hoping you'd talk to us about the mugging, by your Vespa -"

The man made a snarl noise.

Vivian eyed the manager, who was biting his thumbnail. Rich gently tried to speak again, asking about the incident, but Cage kept snarling. This wasn't working. When there was a pause in the 'conversation,' Vivian spoke up. "We found her."

Suddenly Cage locked eyes with Vivian. "Her."

"Yes. The person who hit you, we think they killed her-"

"Him."

She blinked. "Him. It was a he?"

Cage nodded. "Him."

Surprised, Rich took a deep breath. "Mr. Cage, do you remember what he looked like?"

And Cage nodded. A feeling of heaviness filled the room. Foreboding? No, it was the feeling of possibly knowing an answer. "Can you ... Can you describe him?" Vivian hated asking.

Cage shook his head. "No." He frowned at himself. "No. No." He clenched his fists and pounded them on his knees. Angry, he was angry and frustrated at his inabilities.

Oh yeah. Vivian understood that. She frowned, thinking, while the manager tried to calm Jackson down. Rich shared their frustration. "Crap I wish it was just sign language or something."

Vivian stared at her partner. Or something. How could they help people who couldn't communicate like the average person? Simply by giving them another form of expression. "Or something. Rich, you're a genius!" Vivian's outburst caught everyone by surprise. "Jackson. Can you help us find him?"

Now the man looked pained. "How?"

"Can you use a computer?"


Everyone was staring at the face projected on Gail's wall. Three detectives were there with two patrol officers, in addition to Gail and Holly and Rodney. Once they'd gotten an ID, Gail called an all hands in her office. Holly crossed her arms and frowned. "I don't like this," she said quietly.

"I hate it," said Gail.

"I expected it," said Vivian from the back.

Because the kid had said, vocally, she did not expect this to be a neat ending. It was a circular ending. The poor injured man, crippled and unable to speak, had been given new life when Vivian plunked him at the computer app to create sketches. After demonstrating how it worked, he had no problem in generating a face for them. He'd been delighted and happy to use the computer, something no one had had the genius to try with him before. Delighted at the change in his world, even if he couldn't find words to write any more than he could to speak, the man found joy in making pictures.

That wasn't the problem.

The problem was the face he'd found was one Holly knew.

After all, she'd performed his autopsy.

Almost as on, Gail and Vivian reached up to scratch the back of their heads. They seemed to be oblivious to the other. "Okay," said Gail slowly. "Our suspected killer is Gene Evans. Gene was killed next a stupid Miata."

"Popular street racing car," said Rich Hanford, lurking by Vivian. Holly found it amusing that he was visibly nervous to be in a room with all these people.

Of course Vivian was nonplussed. She'd known most of them for years. "Wasn't the first guy into horses and bicycles?"

"Gene was into scooters. Horses were his work." Gail sucked on her lower lip. "Classic scooters. So. You two are splitting up. Peck and Collins you go work with search and find me the leg bone. Human, horse, I want one. Hanford, you and Volk are on hipster detail. Find me classic vespas and some trace of Mr. Evans."

Holly smiled. It was nice to get to see her wife at work. "Rodney happens to love cars, so he's got that end of the case," explained Holly, gesturing at her Medical Director. "The bones is all me, though. I'm working on a model of horse femur, based on the damage from the various victims."

Gail grinned her saucy, super detective look. It always made Holly flush a little, and it did now. "Computer models?"

"Yes," Holly said, nodding and hoping no one noticed she found her wife that attractive while at work. "I scanned in all the x-rays. Since we already had them segregated by type, it was easier to sort out the models. It's new, though. The existing work of cgi modeling based on injuries is usually done with more consistent weapons, like bats. This is the first time anyone has tried it with bones." The night before, Gail had joked that Holly was creating a new field of study. She wasn't wrong.

Their jock of a daughter mused aloud. "If it were me, I'd have a handle on them." Everyone stared at the rookie cop. "What? Come on, you know how batters have those stupid rituals? They have to put their hands in the perfect spots? Well... I'd wrap one end as the handle, the one with the smaller bones-"

"They're using the condyle end, the knee adjacent part, to hit with," interrupted Holly, curious at the idea.

Vivian nodded. "Yeah, cause the hip bit broke. Right? She had degenerative hip thing? Osteo-something?"

"Osteonecrosis, avascular necrosis due to damaged veins from birth." It was a medical fact none of her family, nor John, had known, until her body was found. Bethany had complained about her hips most of her life, but now they knew why. "She would have needed hip replacement by forty."

"So! Since one leg broke on removal, I would have hacked off that end. Cut off the ball, sand it down, wrap it in leather or bat tape, something to keep it from losing my grip when I sweat. Cause murder's hard work, right?" Vivian mimed swinging. "Speed up the swing too, like choking up on a bat."

The look Holly got from Gail clearly implied she felt Vivian's sports knowledge was all Holly's fault. "Right," said Gail slowly. "Go chase your bone, then."

Clearly knowing the dismissal for what it was, Vivian smirked and tugged Rich out of the office. A heartbeat after the door closed, Rodney snorted a laugh. "I'm sorry, but she is totally your guys's kid."

"Don't make me hurt you, Rodney," threatened Gail. "Shoo. You too, Mayhew. Get Trujillo up to speed, I want you sharing the load. And Connors, you did good."

The others filed out, but Holly remained by the screen. "Are we calling it?"

"Eh, as much as it is unsatisfying, yes. We have the killer. We have motive and means and opportunity. We don't have the weapon and we don't know why Gene was whacking people on the head." Gail sighed and tapped her wireless keyboard, shutting down the display.

"At least we have some leads," offered Holly, soothingly. Frustrated Gail was difficult to work with. Case frustrated Gail could be impossible.

The blonde nodded. Newly re-blonded. That Gail had taken time to get her hair fixed was both amusing and depressing. If there had been any good information, Gail would have put it off and worked down to the wire. There wasn't much to gnaw on here, and Gail had taken the break to try and think it through. "Not enough. I'm going over to John's to break it down though."

"Need company?"

Gail sighed loudly. "Want, yes. But he doesn't need you and me, Holly. He might just get mad."

Holly frowned. "Mad? At us? Why would..." And it hit her. They were what John never got. They were the happy ever after. "Right. Then. I will see you at home?"

Nodding, Gail looked at the closed door and then held her hands out. It was a silent request for what Gail needed just then. Holly smiled and stepped into Gail's arms, letting her wife squeeze her tight for a moment. "I am really, really, fucking lucky, Holly," whispered Gail.

She squeezed back. "Me too." The kiss was brief, nearly chaste, and Holly let herself out while Gail slid back into Detective Inspector mode, her face easing into the calm, quietness.

It was fairly late when Gail got home that night, but Holly waited up. In hand was takeout from the Vietnamese noodle restaurant. They sat on the couch, as was their routine, Gail's feet in her lap, with a movie on. This time it was The Name of the Rose, a movie which Gail enjoyed as much as the book, though for different reasons she said.

They'd seen it a hundred times. They knew the scenes. So neither minded chatting over the plot. Holly asked how John was and Gail explained he, and Janet, were weirdly okay. It was tough, but John said he felt better having an answer. A partial closure. Because Jackson Cage had been able to communicate enough to explain that yes, a woman who looked like Bethany had tried to help him, punched Gene Evans right in the nose.

And while they didn't have all the answers, they had a lot more information. Gene worked with houses, had a butchering knife, took out a man by his Vespa, was punched by Bethany, ran after her and... Died a hero, in terror and pain.

Holly wisely did not mention that.

She rubbed Gail's feet for a while, until Gail scooted around and tugged her into the easy cuddle they loved. Holly smiled as Gail's arms wrapped around her waist. It was safe and comfortable and warm there, in the noodle arms that Gail made fun of. Taking Gail's hand, Holly ran her thumb over the ring. She felt the smile as Gail's lips touched the side of her neck.

There didn't need to say anything to know they loved each other. It was funny. In the beginning, saying it and expressing it was so hard and so important. And now, now they'd found that place where they could just be and they didn't have to worry about the other doubting anything. They were who they were.

By the time the movie was over, Gail was all but asleep, still holding Holly, so they went to bed in the quiet house that, yes, was starting to feel too big.

The alarm went off at the normal time, five thirty AM, and Holly groaned. A pale arm snaked over her and slapped at the nightstand, futilely, until Gail growled. "Hey, Siri! Shut up!"

To Holly's surprise, her smart watch beeped and the alarm stopped. "Holy crow," she said, laughing.

"That actually works?! Fuck!" Gail pressed her face into Holly's back. "God. I hate mornings."

Holly laughed again and rolled over to face her wife. "Good morning, Mrs. Inspector Peck," she said softly.

Gail's eyes, scrunched closed in defiance of the alarm, popped open. The bright blue eyes that sucked Holly in so many times before sparkled in the morning light. "Good morning, Mrs. Doctor Stewart." She grinned wildly, broadly, in that all encompassing way that broke Holly's heart years ago. When Gail smiled that way, that freely, Holly wanted to surrender the world to her wife.

Especially today. Today was the actual anniversary.

Sure, they were going to work because it was Thursday and work needed doing. They had a case to close, or as much of close as could be hand. And they always went to work on their anniversary if it was a weekday. As a child, Vivian had been confused until Gail explained they'd married on their lunch break.

Which was why their tradition was to go to lunch and sit in the park together. Some years it was just fifteen or thirty minutes and then Holly was back to elbows deep in a body, or Gail was off to corner some criminal. But that was their time, their moment. It didn't need to be a huge party with a hundred people faking their deep feelings. It was thirty minutes, maybe an hour, of time with the most amazing person in her life.

And she knew Gail felt the same way. The look in those eyes, the twinkle and the smile, told Holly that Gail loved her strange, off beat, behavior. The blue eyes crinkled, more wrinkles now than twenty years ago, and Gail propped her head up on her hand. "Wanna be late to work?" Her gaze swept Holly's form appreciatively.

"Hmmm no." Somehow Holly managed to keep her face deadpan, even as Gail looked flabbergasted. "But I will trade my run for some alternative cardio."

The malicious smirk her wife was known for danced across Gail's face. "You are such a shit, Holly."

Grinning back, Holly reached for Gail's nightie and tugged her closer. "You like it when I'm a shit," she replied, pitching her voice low and as sultry as possible. Generally an easier feat in the morning.

Gail's reply was a half hum, half growl of appreciation, before she started to kiss Holly's neck. Sighing happily, Holly tilted her head to give Gail more access. "God your skin is amazing," said Gail, lips ruffling the hairs that had fallen out of Holly's night braid. Her free hand was already up and under Holly's shirt, gently scratching her stomach.

"Your hand is pretty amazing," said Holly, as Gail's hand slowly, tortuously, moved up her ribs.

"My hand has ideas of its own."

"Did you or your hand have something specific in mind this morning?"

And Holly's phone rang. "I will shoot your phone, Stewart," Gail groaned. "It's our kid, she can wait."

It was probably just Vivian calling to wish them happy anniversary. But it was also crap early and Vivian never called early without a reason. Reluctantly, Holly leaned away and picked up her phone. "Dr. Stewart," she answered, hoping her voice didn't sound too much like someone wanting to get laid.

"Hey, Moms. Three things, then go have sex." Behind Vivian was a male voice of outrage and horror. Interesting. That was either Christian or Nick, from the tone. "One, dogs found the horse bone at three am. Tell Mom I secured the scene and called Trujillo."

Gail's hand had not stopped its traversal of Holly's stomach, and Holly reached down to grab the fingers before they got to her breasts. "Thanks, Viv," said Gail, loudly enough to be heard.

"Welcome. Second bit is happy anniversary. Third is Lily is insane. I gotta go, Officer Collins is being a ding dong."

"He's good at that. Bye, kid." Gail slipped her hand out of Holly's shirt and hung up the phone for her.

"Rude," laughed Holly, tossing the phone back on her nightstand.

Instead of replying, Gail pushed herself up and sat on Holly's hips. She arched her eyebrows and very, very slowly lifted her nightie up. Gail bit her lip coyly and Holly felt herself melt into a puddle then and there.

They were not, in the end, late to work. Though it was a near thing.


There were two cops in a conference room. Gail saw Nick on the couch, curled on his side, his back to the door, and Gail could see his bald spot. In the chair, long legs stuck out and crossed at the ankles, arms tucked over each other, Vivian was apparently resting. Not sleeping though, as an eye opened when Gail stepped inside. Even though the kid had powered through a double, she still didn't sleep outside the home even if that home was her own.

Gail doubted Viv had even seen her place since Wednesday at the ass crack of dawn. It was still weird, getting used to not having Vivian at the house. It felt too big, too empty, and too lonely. That first week without her had been hard. Gail had been in a constant state of anxiety. Finally, after a serious talk with her therapist and with Elaine, Gail had done something she felt unthinkable. She tracked her daughter.

Of course Gail told Vivian what she was doing, but still. She did it. Just to make sure. And Vivian, bless her heart, would text Gail to let her know where she was. It helped. It helped a lot.

Time for some smiles. Holding a finger to her lips, Gail stepped over to Nick on the couch and peeked. Asleep. Gail grinned and shouted. "Oi!"

Nick bolted to his feet, clearly panicked. "God damn it, Gail!"

With a yawn and a stretch, Vivian stood up. "Coffee?" She seemed to care less about Nick's behavior and Gail grinned. That was her kid.

"Yes." Gail held out the to go tray and Vivian eagerly took the cup with a V. "We made some headway. Gene Evans real name was Heinrich Haan. He was a groom at a horse taxi company."

Vivian perked up. "Horse bone!"

"Yes. Sadly they cremate horses, so Holly can't compare it to anything. But!" Gail grinned. "They fired Mr. Haan for theft."

"Bone theft?" Nick was incredulous.

And yet he was right. "Bone theft. They caught him at the crematorium. I just got back from that. Crematorium was paid off to not file charges. Accountants are looking into the money now, but it looks like it was laundered well. Still. Someone is funding people with a taste in cars and bones."

Vivian looked thoughtful. "Two people used the horse bone. So Haan was the second killer?"

"They're the Dread Pirate Roberts of the criminal world," Gail said, amused. "But for once, we actually have a thread to follow. Who was Heinrich Hann? Who paid to cover him up? Who taught him how to kill? I have a theory it was one of the rich asshats who kept horses in the city. A love of horses to cars follows."

Nodding, her daughter asked, "So now what?"

"Now you two go the hell home and sleep. Nick, shave and put on that tux. Viv, I don't actually care if you shave, but Mom said she dropped off a, quote, 'stunning outfit' at your place on Monday, and if you don't wear it, she might cry. And don't forget brunch with everyone tomorrow."

Both officers looked a little sad. "We don't get to help any more?" Nick looked actually annoyed.

"No. Abercrombie and Volk are going to do some leg work and see if they can find anything, but this is back to the Ds. Come on, cold cases rarely need foot patrol, and we're calling Bethany's case solved."

With a slight scowl, Vivian nodded. "I guess..." She sighed. "It feels half baked."

"I know. But hey, bright side is there's going to be another sting next month, and your name is on the list." Gail tapped Vivian's name tag. Enlightenment dawned on the younger Peck's face while Nick laughed. "Don't mind ding dong Collins. He never got to be a hooker." On that note, Gail took a muffin out of the bag, leaving the rest with the two officers, and returned to her office.

The case was closed, in as much as they could close it for Bethany. While John would be back at work the next week, he was now officially off the head-bashing cases. Gail sighed and typed up her notes, transferring the brunt of the case to herself and assigning John the off and on arsons. He was damned good at the long cold cases, but this was one he couldn't touch.

Losing her best asset like this was painful in an unexpected way. It was the first time in years, if ever, that Gail had hurt for someone else. Someone besides herself, her wife, and her kid. Not that Gail didn't have sympathy for her friends. When John's mother had died, she felt sorry for him. She'd wondered if it was harder or easier than dealing with her father's death.

But this death... It wasn't like they'd all thought Bethany had been dead for years anyway. The difference was that they knew. Now they had incontrovertible proof that the woman John had loved and lost was dead. And now the weight of her death would sit on John forever. Was that better or worse than the weight of the unknown?

It wrapped around Gail too, the painful facts of her death. And the pain she'd watched carve itself into his face was hers too.

Awesome. It only took her fifty years to figure out how to have empathy for people. How to feel their agony and understand their pain. The stupid shit her Peck family, the asshole ones she never liked anyway, had demanded Elaine try to force into Gail. Ugh. She covered her face.

"You look like ass, little sister."

"Fuck you too, Ginger."

Steve laughed and Gail heard the door close. "Mom wanted me to make sure you went home before two."

Gail didn't look up. "God forbid I have bags under my eyes."

"I think she was more worried about you showing up in jeans and boots."

Now she looked up. "I look hot as fuck in jeans and boots, brother."

"You're my sister. So ew."

She sighed and studied Steve's face. "What was it like? When it was me?" He looked perplexed. "When you got back from undercover with Frankie and found out the hoopla about a kidnapped cop was me?"

Steve's face shuttered closed. That affable, goofy brother she loved just shut down. "What? Why are you asking me this?"

"Because... Because I just solved the death of my partner's fiancé. This woman he loved so damn much it's screwed him up for thirty fucking years, Steven. And ... And it feels like someone is cutting me open and I've gotta know if this is normal."

Her brother sighed and sat down on the couch. "I wanted to punch Dad. When they told me. It was like all the air in my lungs was sucked out and I tried to see this world where I didn't have you keeping me honest. And ... It scared the shit out of me, Gail."

Gail nodded, thinking that sounded right. "You know. I feel bad for people. When they lose family and friends. But it never hurt before. Except Sophie."

He didn't look surprised. "What did Oliver tell you back then?"

"He said it got me. Broke the skin. And everything was gonna hurt a little more." She exhaled loudly. "Thing was... It didn't. I mean, I was aware more but it didn't hurt like this. This... This aches. Like when my ankle hurts in winter?"

"Well. John's family."

Gail snorted. "Didn't hurt like this when you got stabbed."

And he laughed. "I hope not! You knew I'd be fine!"

She smiled. "Family?"

"Sure. Remember, you gotta be close as family to your partner. And you and John, it's almost as long as you and Holls."

"Please don't call her that, her name is Holly."

Steve smiled. "Come on. Close up. Go home. Shower. Get sexy. I'll pick you and Mrs. Doctor Stewart up. Because I am still more scared of Mom than you."

With a sigh, Gail closed up her laptop and followed the orders of Herr Peck.


She didn't mind that Steve made her give the speech. Vivian was pretty sure he'd skip out of it, since he hated public speaking nearly as much as Gail did. With that in mind, she'd written a short speech weeks ago, and talked about how she appreciated the little ways her moms showed how they loved each other.

It had made both Gail and Holly cry a little.

"Peckling! Where are your parents?"

"Making out in the coat closet, Uncle Ollie." She grinned and hugged the man she'd only seen in passing that night.

Oliver squeezed her back. "Funny girl. Good speech."

"Thanks."

Holding her upper arms, Oliver looked her up and down. "Moved out too."

She nodded. "That was my present."

Her uncle grinned. "They raised you good." Oliver squeezed her upper arms and went off, saying he was looking for her moms.

Vivian watched him wander off and picked up a bottle of champagne. It took her exactly three minutes to find her mothers, sitting on a couch in the coat closet, sharing a near empty bottle. "Knock knock," she said, kicking the door more closed behind her.

"Thank god, we're almost out." Gail scooted over, leaving enough room for Vivian to sit down between them.

She hesitated before giving in to the glowers of both mothers, and sat between them, immediately getting hugged. "Oh god, if you're going to get all sappy, I'm telling Elaine where you are."

Holly kissed her cheek. "She brought us the first bottle."

Taking the bottle from Vivian, Gail poured three flutes. "We're only allowed to hide out as long as the booze lasts. You, my dear sweet daughter, bought us another half-hour."

"I think Elaine'll figure it out," said Vivian, laughing. But she took the glass and tinked her's against her mothers' and sipped the bubbly.

They could just hear the music. Vivian sighed and leaned her head onto Holly's shoulder, slouching down so she'd fit, and Holly wrapped an arm around her shoulders. On her other side, Gail leaned against Vivian, reaching over her to touch Holly's thigh. It was, certainly, not a romantic moment. But for three people who had limits with their ability to deal with crowds, it was a hell of a lot nicer.

"Is John still out there?" Gail refilled the glasses.

Vivian shook her head. "No. When you guys skipped out, he said goodnight." She frowned. "Is he really gonna be okay?"

Snorting, Gail downed half her glass. "I'm the last person to ask, mini me."

Holly sighed. "Don't be an ass, Gail."

"I'm deflecting and avoiding my feelings," whinged Gail. "It's bad enough I'm stuck at a party. I don't want to suffer empathy for John all night." When Holly's silence reigned, Gail noted, "Janet looked okay."

"She's good for him," Vivian said softly. "I hope he's okay. I like John."

"You did not like him when you met him," Gail remarked.

Vivian snorted. "He was a man with a gun. I think the only one I did like was Oliver."

"Which is why I knew you were a genius." Gail squeezed Vivian for a second. "I think we did okay with you."

"God knows how."

"It was a nice speech," said Holly, thoughtfully. "I liked the part about how we got cats out of trees."

"Yeah, finally figured that metaphor out, huh?" Gail laughed at them and sipped her champagne.

Vivian smiled. "Last year." She closed her eyes. "Do you miss me yet?"

"I miss your turn to cook and do dishes," said Gail seriously. Holly flicked at Gail's hair, laughing. "I got used to you being around, Viv. House feels too big."

"Makes me wish we'd gotten you as a baby," Holly said wistfully. "I wouldn't have minded an extra few years."

"Please! Can you see Gail with a baby? Crying and fussing and no sleep?" Vivian laughed and poked Gail's leg as her blonde mother spluttered indignantly. "I think... I think just like you two met at the right time, you met me at the right time. When I needed you."

Her mothers squeezed her close. They were still hugging like that when Elaine came in with a bottle of Martinelli's. "Thank god you're still here." Elaine pulled over and chair and fell into it, kicking her shoes off. "We have half an hour."

"Is Steve dancing yet?"

"Almost. Holly, dear. Your father is drunk."

Holly winced. "Is he dancing the Macarena or singing Eagles songs yet?" When Elaine shook her head, Holly looked relieved. "Thank god. He's where I get my singing voice."

Vivian giggled. "Where did Gail get hers?"

"Grandma Antonia. She was a drunk bitch, but she had pipes." Gail sighed and sat up. "Switch with me, junior."

Obliging, Vivian got up but she took the champagne with her. "I can go wrangle grandpa," she offered.

Gail snuggled herself right up against Holly, smiling. "In a minute. How are you getting home?"

"That was the only booze I've had all night, Mom. I'm good to drive home."

Nodding, Gail turned to her mother. "Staying here, Mom?"

"God no," laughed Elaine. "Gordo is driving. And don't worry, we're taking your parents out to brunch, Holly, dear."

"Thank you," sighed Holly. "I feel bad I can't take more time off."

"They understand," Elaine said.

"Where is Gordo?" Vivian looked around, wondering about her grandmother's boyfriend. He was not Elaine's first boyfriend in the last eight years, but of them all, Gordo was Vivian's personal favorite.

Elaine flushed a little. "He's dancing with Traci, Celery, and Lily and anyone else. The man has the stamina of a college student."

There was a pause and Gail and Vivian cracked up. "Don't let him get worn out, Mom," teased Gail.

Even Holly laughed at that. They teased Elaine a little more until, finally, it was time to go back out into the crowd. "Okay, I'm going to rescue Toronto from my dad," sighed Holly. She kissed Gail and stood up.

With a sigh, Gail watched Holly and then Elaine leave. "What're you waiting on, Viv?"

"You. Elaine wanted me to help keep you in line." She smiled as her mother flipped her off and got ready to go.

But Gail paused at the door. "There are a million ways to save I love you, kid," Gail said quietly. "Be safe. Watch your back. Wear your seatbelt." She looked at Vivian, eye to eye thanks to the heels. "But I love you, Viv. Thank you. For the speech and helping Elaine and everything."

Vivian looked at her shoes and smiled. "I love you too, Mom."

Smiling, Gail kissed her cheek. "Good. Now I'm going to dance with your Mom and go to a hotel room where we can annoy the shit out of our neighbors."

Vivian followed Gail out, grinning. She wouldn't have her moms be any other way.


For what it's worth, John would rather have the whole answer too, but having any answer at all is helpful. He will be okay.

Let me know how many Kleenexes were used and 'Damn you, Chappy!'s were uttered. The reviews let me know how the story is working for you readers. They also bring sunshine to cloudy days, and encourage me.