It was the fifteenth of January when Nora shifted in a chair that was incredibly unforgiving on her tail-bone and leafed through the policy handbook she'd stolen on her way out of the District Attorney's Office almost a month ago. The other women waiting in the stark-white reception area of the clinic shot her judgmental looks over the tops of their magazines… it was probably due the fact while the other patients were sitting with their husbands or boyfriends, Nora was flanked by two men; one was her father, and the other looked old enough to be her father.

The young lawyer simply ignored them, she had bigger things to worry about than whether or not a group of strangers thought she was in a three-way relationship with two older gentlemen… though a small part of her was curious at the reactions she might have gotten if Nick had been able to come as well.

"Honey, you've been through that thing a few dozen times by now" Franklin Fitzsimons observed from her right. "We've got the foundation for the case, now you're just obsessing"

"We don't know anything about this doctor" she gritted out in response. "He could be a total idiot who can't count past ten without taking his shoes and socks off"

"If he's been through med school then that doesn't seem likely" Frank gave her shoulder a squeeze, prompting his daughter to put away the book, let out a deep breath and bring a hand to her rounded stomach.

In just shy of a month her belly had gone from flat as a board to curved enough that people could tell she was pregnant, and not just struggling to lose extra weight gained over the holidays… though Nora suspected at least half of her bump could indeed be blamed on Rosa Valentine's divine home-cooking. The abrupt growth spurt from her baby still seemed bizarre however, and she made a mental note to ask this new doctor about it after getting what she came for.

What she came for was a letter… from a court-selected obstetrician… signed by the issuing doctor, her lawyer (who was also her dad) and a witness from the District Attorney's Office (dozing to her left)… stating beyond a shadow of a doubt that her child was conceived before her former employer's changed their policy regarding the hiring and firing of pregnant women.

Such was the loop-hole Nora had found buried in the fine print during one of her many readings through the pilfered handbook… only the women who got knocked-up after the changes went into effect could be sacked without grounds for recourse.

The District Attorney's Office signed their new policy into effect on the seventeenth of October. The policeman's ball she'd attended with Nick, and subsequently abandoned in favor of unprotected, baby-making sex atop a picnic table, had been on the third of the same month… exactly two weeks before the amendment.

It was still going to be challenge to prove the exact date… two weeks wasn't a hell of a long buffer period. Not to mention the fact that their chosen form of contraception had been the pull-out method, which wasn't exactly lauded for it's effectiveness in preventing pregnancy. She couldn't say for certain that she hadn't conceived at a later date… the park incident just seemed the most likely culprit.

Nora's obsessive, roundabout thinking was halted as a bald man in a white doctor's coat called her into his office. She shuffled in quickly, her father and the witness who's name she kept forgetting trailing behind her… trying her hardest not to dwell on what would happen if this appointment went less than favorably.

Nick Valentine ran his fingers along the buttons of the large holotape player he'd been directed to upon discovering the two tiny yellow rectangles left for him by Captain Widmark. Leaving a note would've been far easier, but Widmark was the type of guy who went ga-ga over the idea of a high-tech future, so holotapes had won out over paper.

He finally located a button that, upon pressing, caused a little door to pop open on the top of the device, he deposited the first tape inside and sat back as the captain's voice filled the small room;

"Hello team, Captain Widmark here. Operation Winter's End starts now… with you. Together, we will knock Eddie Winter off his throne and dump his sorry ass in a 2000-volt easy chair. It should come as a surprise to no one that our operations in Boston have been, in a word, compromised. Winter has eyes everywhere… even in the BPD. So, our brothers across the river in Cambridge have been kind enough to let us use the Cambridge Police Department as our base of operations. Let's get to work. Good hunting".

Nick frowned to himself as the message came to an end with a small click. It had been a surprise, to him at least, to learn that there were moles in the department. After the team from Internal Affairs wrapped up their investigation they'd been very clear in stating that they hadn't found any leaks… perhaps it'd been misdirection on their part? Get the word around that the bureau was safe and any spies would be lulled into a false sense of security.

Whatever the reason… it was out of his hands now, the detective thought to himself as he slipped the second holotape into the player. This one was addressed to Nick personally, as opposed to the first tape, which had been passed around between the members of the task-force. Once again the captain's voice issued forth from the machine;

"Detective Valentine, Captain Widmark here. I'd just like to re-iterate how excited I am that you agreed to the position of lead investigator on our little operation. Commissioner Turner has already regaled me with the tales of your adventures in Chicago. As you know, Edward L. "Eddie" Winter has been a pox on this beautiful city for nearly two decades. Extortion, murder, racketeering, kidnapping… name a crime, he's committed it. The epitome of the cold-blooded, brilliant, slippery crime boss. Fortunately for us, over the years, Winter has also developed the most self-destructive of character traits… supreme arrogance. It's come to our attention that recently Winter stopped coding his correspondences and began communicating entirely via un-encrypted holotape. Each one supposedly addressed to the subject in question and very clearly signed off by Winter himself. He's obviously mocking the authorities. He knows we're monitoring him. He doesn't care. Winter thinks he's untouchable. He's wrong. This is when the game changes. Those holotapes are the key to building a case against Eddie Winter, and they're what this task-force will focus on. His crimes, his words. Total self-incrimination. Get those holotapes, and we get Winter"

Nick barely registered the soft click signaling the end of the recorded message as he absorbed the implications within…

Had Winter's ego really grown so bloated that it out-weighed any shred of common sense? The idea that this seasoned psychopath was outright confessing his crimes on holotape seemed a little too good to be true… it niggled unpleasantly at his detective's intuition.

But on the other hand, he'd already seen the evidence that the crime lord's arrogance was hitting dangerous proportions… that stunt with the rigged shotguns in the gentleman's club stood out like a sore-thumb in his memory. There was also the very recent incident of one of his top lackeys, Arthur Black, stabbing a waiter to death in the middle of a crowded restaurant while dining with Winter himself. Perhaps it wasn't too far-fetched for Eddie to also be careless with something as mundane as his everyday communications.

Plus, Widmark wasn't an idiot, as far as Nick could tell… if there was a chance that these miraculous tapes were utter bullshit he certainly wouldn't dedicate an entire covert operation towards finding them. Leading the detective to conclude that he likely already had one or more in his possession… probably being kept in a secret, secure location. He wouldn't ask the captain about it though, it was risky to share that kind of information, even between the head of the operation and it's lead investigator.

Speaking of secure locations, he still had a job that needed completing by the end of the day… clean out his desk, hoof it over to the Cambridge Police Department, get assigned a new work-station and wait for further instructions. Nick retrieved the second holotape from the machine and stowed both messages in the pocket of his coat… stretching the kinks out of his back before leaving the room and heading first towards his locker.

Nora sat at the kitchen table in the apartment she'd recently begun sharing with her fiance, shoving half a Fancy Lads brand snack cake into her mouth and scowling at the smug grin of her father sitting next to her… he was always so damn insufferable when he perceived himself as victorious, it was one of the reasons she hadn't gone to work at his firm after passing the bar.

"C'mon, you're going to have to admit it eventually" Frank chuckled, his daughter's thunderous expression doing nothing to quell his amusement. "I was right, you were wrong, and you worked yourself up over nothing in the end" he punctuated his point by waving a sheet of paper back and forth in front of her face… a letter baring three signatures at the bottom.

"He still didn't give a proper date" she argued with a full mouth. "He just called my regular doctor a senile old moron, and basically said I was too fat to have gotten pregnant when I thought I did. That doctor was a dick!" Nora was aware that she was saying all of this while reaching for another wrapped treat, but she was too peeved to care about the blatant irony. Frank pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"Would you have preferred it if Doctor Dick had said you were less pregnant than you assumed?" he asked. "The case would've been lost before it's even begun. With this document under our belts the District Attorney's Office will have no choice but to start throwing settlement offers our way… and you're worried about your waist-line?"

Nora put her forehead on the surface of the table and freed a tired breath… it wasn't her waist-line, she'd never been that vain… it was the chaotic maelstrom her life had become since returning from Chicago… and now the revelations of today's examination had been added to it;

Her pregnancy was, at the very least, a full month further along than she'd predicted… based on the size of her belly. Doctor Dick had wrapped a tape-measure around her middle, made her stand on a set of scales and then lie down as he man-handled her stomach before revealing the horrifying reason she hadn't started showing much earlier…

Diastasis Recti… a fancy medical term for what was essentially Nora's abdominal muscles splitting down the middle under the strain applied by her growing uterus. Her six-pack had been holding in her growing baby like a fleshy corset until it just couldn't anymore, leading to the eventual dissection and sudden growth that had utterly baffled her… now she was simply trying to wrap her head around the idea that such a major trauma hadn't sent her to the hospital in screaming agony.

Everything just seemed to be happening at once… she'd discovered her pregnancy, gotten engaged, lost her job, resolved to sue her former employers for unfair dismissal and moved into a new apartment all in the space of a month.

Plus there was the added strain of knowing that at any given moment she was likely to be arrested for fracturing Carol's face on her way out of the District Attorney's Office… Nick came home from work each day assuring her that no warrants had come in with her name on them, but it did nothing to ease her anxiety… in fact, it had the opposite effect; she felt as if the Sword of Damocles was hovering above her head.

It felt like she was running out of time to get her life in order… how the fuck was she supposed to be a decent wife and mother if she couldn't get this absolute cluster-fuck squared away before she went into labor?

Her father had shifted forward in his seat and was now rubbing soothing circles into the small of Nora's back, her face still planted against the wood of the table. She blinked back a few stray tears and swallowed around a lump in her throat.

"Just say the word, Honey" he cooed next to her ear. "I can pull some strings with my buddies in the historical society… you could get hitched at the Old North Church on Valentine's Day. How's that sound?"

She smiled at the thought… apart from the obvious synchronicity between the day ear-marked for lovers and her future surname, it would also fall on the one-year anniversary of their first meeting… and their first date. Had it really only been a year? It felt like a lifetime ago that Nick Valentine had bought her coffee and donuts, before forgoing a special broadcast of the Silver Shroud in favor of exploring each other's bodies for the first time.

"It sounds perfect" she admitted with a tiny sigh, turning her head to face her dad and press her cheek against the surface propping her up. "But it's less than a month away. I've always wanted a small ceremony… but it's still not enough time to plan a wedding"

Frank simply raised an eyebrow and gave her a dark expression, as if she'd just insulted him and issued a challenge in the same breath.

"What's the point of being so highly respected among the upper-crust of Boston society if I can't commandeer a major historical landmark, on a popular holiday no less, for my little girl's big day?" he asked, with the same deadpan tone his child had inherited. "Besides, if I'm paying for it all, shouldn't I get a say in how everything goes down?"

Nora snorted at that… if Franklin Fitzsimons, the ultimate history nut, had total say over how a wedding at the Old North Church was going to play out she could expect to see everyone wearing tricorn hats and frock coats… and instead of walking down the aisle, she'd be walking the entire damn Freedom Trail before getting to the alter.

"I'll talk to Nick about it" she replied. It was as good as saying yes, her dashing detective was happy to elope at the registry office as long as it was with Nora… though she suspected that Rosa Valentine would never forgive them if they tied the knot outside of God's own house. "But if I see a single revolution era outfit you will never be allowed to meet your grandchild" she threatened, only half-jokingly.

"I wouldn't dream of it" he laughed, before lacing his fingers together on the table and fixing his daughter with a probing gaze. "Though there is something I'd like to ask of you in return…"

When Nick Valentine arrived home it was to the sight of his pregnant fiance and her father chatting at the kitchen table… which looked as if a dumpster had exploded on top of it. Every square inch of the surface was littered with papers, manila folders, empty soda bottles and roughly three boxes worth of plastic wrapping from those Fancy Lads snack cakes Nora had taken a shine to over the past week… at this rate their kid was going to be born overweight and diabetic, he mused grimly.

"Look's like someone had a productive day" he observed aloud, hanging up his trench coat and hat on a wall hook before moving to join them. "Did you ask about..." he trailed off and waved a hand in front of his stomach, the gesture causing Nora's eyebrows to knit together and a tiny cringe to appear on her face.

"Yeah… sit down. This is going to be disgusting" she pulled a chair out for him as he scoffed inwardly. Jesus Christ… he was a cop! He'd been in shoot-outs and visited grisly crime scenes on a regular basis. Why did she assume that he wasn't prepared to hear the less savory details of her pregnancy?…

...

… He definitely hadn't been prepared for the colorful explanation he'd received twenty minutes earlier, damn her spot-on assumptions… Nick Valentine was still fighting down the desire to get roaring drunk in hopes of erasing his memory as the account of the days events shifted, from Nora and Frank's plan for an accelerated wedding, to the reason his kitchen looked like a junk yard; his future wife had finally caved and agreed to a position in her father's firm, Fitzsimons & Stone… she was working her way through the mountain of paperwork required to make it official.

"Work hard at it and one day it'll be Fitzsimons, Stone & Valentine!" Frank was crowing enthusiastically as Nora scribbled away at a dotted line… and an idea formed in Nick's head.

"Sweetheart, if you're going to fast-track our nuptials… there's something I'd like to ask for in return…" he began carefully. The scratching of her pen stopped and both lawyers gave him their rapt attention. Damn it all, he really didn't want to do this… but the thought of her overworking herself to the point of illness and anxiety (as she was prone to do) caused him to lose sleep at night. "When the District Attorney's Office sees that letter, and they offer you a decent settlement, I want you to take it"

Nick had discovered over the recent months that telling a pair of lawyers to accept a settlement offer was akin to telling a marine corps unit to lie down and let the enemy troops march right over them… it was loser talk and it was completely unacceptable. He had to start explaining fast when their expressions turned identically murderous;

"Nora, doll… I'm all for the idea of making them pay for how they gave you the boot. But if you take this to court I'm worried it's going to stir-up any bad blood leftover between you and a certain co-worker who's face you broke… I walk into the precinct every day thinking that I'm gonna get the order to haul you in, but it never comes… I don't know what happened to make Carol drop it all, but if you sue them what do you think the odds are that she'll reconsider?"

It was a low blow, the detective was painfully aware of that… but if he'd told her the truth; That he was worried about the health of his pregnant wife-to-be it would have started an argument about unnecessary coddling on his part, and she'd go ahead with the case just to try and prove him wrong. It wasn't a lie, per se… he was genuinely concerned over the idea that Nora could be charged with assault, but it was far from the main issue that was bugging him.

His white lie seemed to have the desired effect however… she chewed on her bottom lip and frowned deeply as she mentally weighed her options, before finally sighing and admitting in a tiny grumble;

"Fine… I'll drop it. I guess if I've already got another job then the money isn't as important anymore. But I want my severance pay at the very least, they sure as shit owe me that!" she snapped to the world in general. Frank put a determined hand on her shoulder.

"Just let me do all the talking. I'll get you double your severance pay and a years worth of lost wages, you have my word" he declared, with all the conviction of a comic-book superhero overlooking a crime-infested city from atop a skyscraper.

Nick leaned back in his chair and chuckled at the idea of Franklin Fitzsimons in a cowl and cape … and then over the idea that given enough time, if Nora became a name-partner, his surname would essentially be emblazoned across the front of a business somewhere.

It was a novel thought indeed.

Author's Note: I hate cutting Nora's legal crusade short, but I honestly have no idea how I'm going to squeeze a lawsuit into this story on top of everything else I already have planned. And before you google it and traumatise yourselves; Yes, Diastasis Recti (abdominal muscle separation) is a real thing that can happen during pregnancy if the mother overexerts herself like Nora does! Also if the mother is short, or has weak abs, or is having twins, etc, etc... the list of reasons is a mile long :/

Next Chapter Preview: It's the day before the wedding and Nick trades assignments with a fellow officer in order to avoid the stag party Donny insists on throwing for him. Nora finds out that he's spending his last twenty-four hours of freedom working, and devises a plan to both help him with his job and ensure a good time.

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