6:00 the next morning

Don decided he should give up on sleep. Even after a 36-hour shift, he found himself tossing and turning all night. It wasn't like he slept well on normal nights, he usually passed out in front of whatever sports event he'd recorded to watch during his time off and never for more than four or five hours at a time. His current inability to fall asleep and stay asleep had to do with the tiny blonde girl he'd met less than 24 hours ago. His daughter. He couldn't stop thinking about her; he had so many questions: What did she like to do? Who was she friends with? Was she a good student? Did she have any allergies? Had she ever broken a bone? Did she like sports?

Finally, a few minutes after six, Don decided any more time spent in bed would be useless. After a quick shower, he walked into his kitchen to find the tiny blonde girl who'd occupied his thoughts all night rifling through the refrigerator.

"Hey Anna," Don said quietly as not to startle her, "What are you doing up so early?"

Anna turned around and smiled, "I was hungry. I couldn't sleep and I didn't want to wake mom up." She dismissed Lamb and went back to her exploration of his refrigerator.

"Can I help you find something?" As Don asked, he mentally catalogued the food in his house. What do kids eat for breakfast? What was I planning to have for breakfast? "I can make you eggs?" He offered, not knowing what his backup would be should she decline.

"That's fine," Anna replied, "unless you have pancakes." The young girl was not shy, especially when it came to her favorite breakfast food.

Don laughed a little bit and agreed, moving toward his pantry, "I'll see what I can do."

Twenty minutes later, Veronica opened the bedroom door to see her daughter's face and hands covered in syrup and Lamb trying to prevent the mess from spreading across his kitchen. Anna was happily chatting about her soccer game last week and recounting a play-by-play of her game-winning goal. Veronica couldn't help but notice how engaged Don was with the conversation, having him in their lives might actually woerk out. When she noticed her mom, Anna smiled through her pancakes and said good morning before getting back to her story. Lamb gestured toward the fresh pot of coffee on the counter to which Veronica nodded.

"How are your pancakes?" Veronica asked, once Anna's story ended. Anna took another bite and said something along the lines of "delicious" with a full mouth. Veronica grabbed a damp paper towel and proceeded to wipe syrup off of Anna's hands and mouth before taking a seat next to her and sipping the hot coffee and declining breakfast offered by Don.

"Sweetheart," Veronica said in a serious voice turning toward her daughter, "I want to talk to you about something. Well," she gestured toward Lamb, "we want to talk to you about something."

Anna stopped eating but kept her focus on the fork pushing soggy pancake around her plate, realizing this was a serious conversation and wanting to distract herself from it. Upon being implicated in the conversation, Don stopped moving around the kitchen and leaned with his back against the sink watching Veronica talk to her daughter, their daughter, knowing that it wasn't his place to say anything, at least not yet.

"I heard that when you talked to Agent Jones and his partner, they asked about your father." At Veronicas mention of the "f-word" Anna looked up confused but nodded. They never talked about that; sure, Anna had asked why she didn't have a dad in her life but Veronica always brushed it off. "I'm sorry if that upset you, they shouldn't have said anything to you. But, if you're interested, I want to talk to you about your dad."

Anna just nodded and went back to stirring syrup around her plate. Veronica took a sip of her coffee and looked up at Don before continuing, "I used to live here, before you were born. After Grandpa Keith died, I decided to leave Neptune and work with the FBI. What I didn't know when I left was that I was already pregnant with you."

"I was in your tummy and you didn't know?" Anna looked up from the mess in front of her, questioning how her mom didn't notice a baby growing inside of her.

Veronica smiled, and nodded her head, "You were so small, I didn't know you were there until you started to grow. And because I didn't know about you, I didn't tell your dad about you before I moved away. He stayed here when I moved away and I made the decision for us to live alone in Sacramento. He didn't find out that about you until yesterday."

"He's in Neptune?" Anna asked, puzzled with a multitude of questions running through her mind. They'd never talked about her dad before, and now her mom was telling her that she's in the same city as him. Anna had never really thought of her dad as a real person. She had enough understanding of the birds and the bees to know a man was involved in something that resulted in her mom having her, but she'd never really thought of her father as a person. Is he nice? Does he like kids? Does he have a dog? Does he like sports? What's his favorite kind of ice cream?

Veronica gave Don a small smile and stage whispered to Anna, "He's in this kitchen."

Anna looked up at her mom and followed her gaze to Lamb, "He's my dad?" Anna wondered out loud.

"Yep" Veronica answered, "what questions do you have?"

"Do you like sports?" Anna asked, blurting out the first question that popped into her mind, both of the adults in the room laughed quietly and Don answered, "Of course! I would really like to come to one of your soccer games soon." He looked to Veronica for approval of his answer and again, she smiled and nodded softly.

"Really?" Anna's eyes lit up and Veronica's heart broke a little bit, considering the experiences she'd prevented her daughter from having by keeping their lives so separate from Don's. "I have a game on Saturday, and a scrimmage on Wednesday night. And next month I'm in a tournament in San Francisco."

"I'm sure your mom and I will figure something out." Don responded, already mentally checking his calendar, knowing there's nothing more important than Anna's soccer game this weekend.

"Are you going to live with us?" Anna's next question to her newly discovered father was a little more difficult than the first question. Don opened his mouth to deflect but wasn't quite sure how to respond. Fortunately, Veronica jumped in, "Anna, Don lives here. He's the sheriff and Neptune needs him. But he can visit us a lot and we can come here to visit."

Anna was not totally satisfied with that answer, "Why don't we move here?" she asked turning to her mom. Veronica knew there wasn't going to be a way to win this conversation with her daughter, but unmarried parents made it work over greater distances than this – hell, Neptune was less than an hour and a half from Sacramento by plane. Not that she's contemplated booking the flight a dozen times when she was pregnant with Anna. "My job is in Sacramento, so we need to live there. Plus, that's where your school is."

Before Anna had a chance to argue with that logic, or ask another question about the logistics of her paternity there was a sharp knock at the door, obviously belonging to a cop. Lamb moved to front door, with Veronica following closely behind.

"Sheriff Lamb. Agent Mars." The agent on the other side of the door greeted as soon as Don had the door unlocked, "I'm sorry to disturb you both so early but we've received some new information regarding Anna's attempted kidnapping."

Don opened the door a little wider to allow himself and Veronica to step outside to listen to the agent's update without Anna overhearing – if Anna's anything like her mother, and Don was sure she was, he knew she would be eavesdropping.

Before Lamb was all the way outside, the agent stopped him. "Sheriff, we appreciate your cooperation with our investigation and recognize that you are a personal friend of the victim's family but it's best if we continue this conversation privately." He gestured between himself and Veronica as he finished his statement.

Before Lamb could react, Veronica stepped in, "He should stay. He should be involved in this conversation – I want him kept up to date on any developments." As with her request for alternate lodging the previous night, Veronica's tone did not leave any room for disagreement.

"Very well," the agent continued, pulling out a notepad to read from, "The suspect who was arrested last night was found to be acting alone." Veronica let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, for the first time in nearly a decade, Lamb reached out to Veronica and squeezed her hand, sharing in the feeling of relief with that information. Fortunately for the sake of Veronica's privacy, this action went unnoticed by the FBI agent who was still reviewing his note pad.

"While the motivation behind this attack is still being looked into, we have no reason to anticipate further danger to you or your daughter. It appears that the man in custody was attempting to send a message to a cartel with whom he hoped to do business – unfortunately for him, having his plan thwarted by an eight-year-old and local law enforcement, no offence Sheriff, isn't quite the cartel-ready resume builder he'd hoped. This should be an open-and-shut case, we anticipate Olivaris will be in jail for the better part of the next two decades."

Veronica and Lamb both thanked the agent for the update, and agreed to meet him back at the sheriff's department later that morning. Veronica needed to fill out some paperwork before returning home.


Later that morning, Don, Veronica and Anna returned to the Balboa County Courthouse to find it severely lacking in suits, compared with the day prior. The bulk of the FBI presence had moved onto the next case once the issue with the detainee was resolved and he was transferred to a federal courthouse to await trial. A single agent remained with a folder of paperwork that rivaled Veronica's senior thesis.

The lone agent handed the paperwork off to Veronica, trusting that she would know what to do with it. Most of it was updating contact information, some liability about what the Bureau is and is not responsible for, plus additional after-the-fact paperwork about Veronica refusing the Bureau-provided accommodations.

"This will take me a few minutes, why don't you go see if you can find a vending machine to get some snacks for the ride home." Veronica told her daughter, digging into her purse for her wallet and some lose change.

Don interrupted and stopped her, "I'll take her, you can use my office – its quieter than out here." As if on que, two deputies started to cheer around a cell phone screen, oblivious to the fact that their boss was standing a few feet away.

"Wow Sheriff," Veronica joked, "you really trust me alone in your office? The times, they are a-changin'"

Lamb rolled his eyes and wondered out loud, "How much trouble can you get into in five minutes?"

Veronica laughed and declined to comment, both adults were familiar enough with her past actions to know Veronica was highly capable of digging up plenty of trouble in a short amount of time.

As the favorite (or most available) public defender in Balboa County, Cliff McCormick was again visiting a client in the holding cells when he heard Anna and Lamb pass by on their way to the main lobby. Realizing this might be an opportunity to catch Veronica privately, Cliff abruptly ended his meeting with his likely very guilty client and high tailed it toward the sheriff's department bullpen keeping his eyes out for Veronica.

"Did I miss an election?" Cliff asked as he stuck his head into the door of Lamb's office, noticing Veronica sitting behind the desk. "The Mars family has always had my vote but I assumed you'd want to redecorate if you became sheriff."

Veronica shut the file in front of her, having completed her paperwork and grinned looking up at Cliff "Be honest, Cliff, if I'd bet you I'd be behind this desk the first time you bailed me out a decade ago you would have lost money."

Cliff stepped further into the office, shutting the door behind him. "I passed Anna and Lamb in the hallway a few minutes ago, I think they were arguing about baseball. Sounds like they're getting along." Veronica nodded, knowing where Cliff was going with his but let him continue, "and you and Lamb? You're getting along?"

Again, Veronica nodded, "I dropped a bombshell on him yesterday, he's taking it about 100 times better than I thought he would. I'm pretty sure Anna already has him wrapped around her finger."

Cliff smiled, "You wouldn't have believed me if I'd told you how much he's changed over the last few years. But he's actually a decent guy, and unfortunately for many of my clients a pretty good cop too. How are you taking everything, V? You've had quite the shake-up over the last 24 hours. It has to be taking a toll."

"Honestly Cliff, I'm so happy that Anna is safe and that nothing worse happened. I haven't had much time to process everything with Lamb. A big part of me wants to trust him. Hell, he said he offered to come up to Sacramento to watch her play soccer, though I'm not entirely sure he knows exactly how boring youth soccer is when your kid isn't the one with the ball." Veronica paused and continued, "He lost my trust a long time ago, even if he's really changing, I will not let him treat my daughter like he treated me when dad got booted out of office."

Cliff didn't know about Veronica's rape but he remembered the tension between the Mars family and Lamb when the latter assumed office. He knew things were rough for a while, and he never asked but he'd assumed some of that animosity had been brushed under the rug when Anna was conceived.

"You're not asking me for my advice, but I'm going to give it to you." Cliff stepped closer to Veronica, who was still behind Lamb's desk "I really don't think Don Lamb would risk being a shitty dad. If he says he wants to be part of Anna's life I think you should figure out how to let that happen. Even if you don't want to be with him, I think you should give him a chance. I think he will really surprise you." He could hear Anna laughing in the hallway as she neared the door, "Plus, it sounds like Anna has already grown attached, I think you should give her a chance to get to know him."

Cliff opened the door to Anna and Lamb standing right outside, Anna pushed her way into the office, eager to show her mother the candy that Don let her pick out. Veronica just shook her head and started to think about how she was going to convince Anna that she didn't need to eat all of them at once.

"She couldn't decide what she wanted, so we got one of everything." Don explained sheepishly, realizing that giving an eight-year-old child free rein of the vending machine probably wasn't his best parenting decision.

"Its fine," Veronica replied, "she'll have a vegetable with dinner."

"Are you going to get going soon?" Lamb asked, he wasn't in a hurry for his daughter to leave but he knew they had a long drive ahead of them.

"Yeah," Veronica answered, standing up and walking around the front of the desk, "We need to leave now if we want to make it home for dinner. And someone has school in the morning." The last statement was directed toward Anna.

"I'll walk you out." Lamb said as Veronica and Anna each hugged Cliff goodbye.

Don kissed Anna on the head and promised to see her soon, without promising too many specifics – that was a conversation best had with her mother. Once Anna was settled in the back seat, out of earshot with the door closed, Veronica turned to Lamb to further determine his intentions. "Were you serious about coming to one of her soccer games? I know she would love it if you could make the trip up."

"Of course," Don replied immediately, almost disappointed that Veronica doubted him. "I can come this weekend, I looked up flights after you went to bed last night. I can leave here after work Friday and be there before bedtime." As soon as Don realized it sounded like he was inviting himself to Veronica's apartment for the weekend, he continued, "I mean, I can stay at a hotel close by, I just thought maybe I'd come by and say goodnight when I got in."

Veronica smiled, both happy that he was going to spend time with their daughter and amused at how quickly he invited then uninvited himself from a sleepover, "I have a very mediocre sofa that you are more than welcome to. I have to warn you though, now that Anna knows you make pancakes they will be requested every time she sees you."

Don laughed, knowing he would make pancakes for breakfast every day for the rest of his life it if meant getting to spend time with Anna. He'd never planned to be a dad; nothing against kids but it was just never really in the cards for him. Now that Anna had come into his life, he couldn't imagine not being present as she grows up.

"I'll see you next weekend then." Don said to Veronica as he waved to Anna who was buckled into the back seat.

Veronica nodded and as she climbed into her own seat she turned and said softly so Anna wouldn't hear, "Don, thanks for being, you know, okay with all of this."

Don didn't respond, it wasn't needed. He just watched Veronica drive away. He checked the time, figuring that he would send Veronica a text later that evening when they should be home – just to make sure the drive went well and to confirm plans for the upcoming weekend.

A/N - This is Lamb/Veronica endgame…it is just going to take a while to get there! More to come soon, hopefully a filler chapter in a few days before the next real chapter!