A/N: Hope you guys like the twist at the end of this chapter. Definately let me know! :)

A week since that night in his apartment and it's a dream. A sweet living memory of the dream they had together back in their high school days.

It's a Wednesday and they're just being let out of the one class they have together. She smiles gleefully, no cares, as she takes his hand has her own, giving it a squeeze as she knocks it against the side of her thigh. He just smirks and purposefully falters his stride to fall against her as they walk underneath the trees along the walkway. She reacts quickly be overcorrecting and pushing against him with a mischievous giggle, pushing him away but pulling him back with an almost forceful snap of her wrist.

He's carefree. Amazingly, considering that up until her coming back into his life, which now seem a lifetime ago, he was carefree in a sense he cared for nothing. Maybe he's just worry-free, that she extinguishes all his doubts, fears, turmoil, and torment. Soothing the jagged edges of his white-knight armor over with her soft voice, kind eyes, and gentle touch. He wouldn't have it any other way. She's his sanctuary now, his safe haven, his retreat away from the windowless room his memories are locked away in, for now.

"Hey," She says, a noticeable bounce in her step and a flop in her neatly-done ponytail. She interrupts his reflection, a good move on her part probably. Reflecting too much never leads to anywhere good.

He looks over with a raised brow and expectant smirk, giving her his attention.

"Are you free this afternoon?" She asks, swinging their enjoined hands about in the space between them.

His smile widens a bit more as he readjusts the strap of his shoulder bag around his neck and looks back down to the walkway. "Yeah, why? You need company while you do homework or something?" He asks suggestively, drifting into her side.

He can hear her chuckle softly and see her eyes roll in the sides of his vision as they fall back into step. "No, I just need a lift somewhere across town."

That catches his attention and he looks over to her again with a softer, more curious brow. "Really? What's going on?"

She looks over to him and gives him a dismissive shake of her head. "It's no big deal, Arnold. I just asked to help out at the Peace Corps office down on the east end of town."

But with that, his attention is jerked in a new direction. "East end?" He asks with too much of a worried lift in his voice. He feels his feet slow him to a step. His hand tugs on her arm to get her to stop, which she does and turns around, facing him with a raised brow on her beautiful face.

"Yeah." She says simply. There's a pause and he's looking at her as if she should already know his worries and what they're focused on. "What's the problem?" She asks him with her question broken by another soft chuckle.

"Helga, the east end is dangerous." He said pointedly. His gut is already tightening, his muscles are tensing. And uncomfortable, but powerful feeling for him.

She just smiles a bit softer and takes a small step toward him, briefly running her hand across her chest before letting her finger fall into the seam of his pocket. "Arnold, I'll be fine. I just need a ride there after my afternoon class, okay?"

"But, Helga-"

"Arnold." She stops him with a firm voice. His words are caught in his throat so fast that they dissolve before reaching his tongue and all he can do is stare at her. Her brow is fixed and her gaze is set on him. His heart squeezes at the look, the guilty feeling that she's angry at his overbearing starting to make him cold sweat.

But she surprises him but reaching up and framing his jaw. Her eyes lid when they dart down to his lips and his blood melts inside his veins as she leans forward and captures his mouth in a sweet, all too sensual, open-mouthed kiss, pulling him in and moving his head to the side to deepen the kiss for him. He can feel his body jump with immediate excitement when he feels her teeth graze against his bottom lip. She presses against him hard again, finally releasing him with a loud, wet pop.

Her arms find ground around his shoulders and start to pull his weak and swaying body in toward her. His eyes flutter open just in time to see her flick her bangs out of her eyes. "It's very sweet that you're so worried about me." She says in a soft voice.

His eyes look down to the small space of ground between them, his fingers wrapping around her front belt loops.

"But I'll be fine, okay? They need me there and I made a promise that I'd be there." She explains. He draws in a long breath and lets it out in an even longer sigh, deflating. "And you're the only guy I'm dating that has a car, so..."

With her teasing quip, he finds his buzzing lips curling into a smirk despite himself as he stares down at her stomach. He looks back up to her with a half smile. "So, that means you're stuck with me then, huh?" He teases back, tugging her flat against him by her belt loops and engulfing her midsection in his arms.

She smiles fully again and tickles his hairline with her nails. "If I have to be."

They parted begrudgingly twenty minutes or so after that, their remaining time together mostly consisting of sweet nothings, with him being acutely aware that she's aware that they both avoided what was bothering him, and that it's her fault for flashing him a smile and steering him away. He could tell the pensiveness but decided to let it go. He has things to do. At least, now he does.

After giving her one last kiss in parting, he smiles as she goes into the door of the classroom.

She's in class for another two and a half hours. He's waiting outside the building for her, the mid-afternoon sun shining through the thick, autumn-colored trees that litter the campus. He lets out a long, deep sigh and swings the bag that's in his hand back and forth as he waits.

East end of town. It's not the worst part of town, but it's bad enough to be worried about her being there. She's tall, blonde, and has the kind of hotness that doesn't ruin your day but ruins your whole life. Like it did his. His offering is a step in a direction. She says she wants to stop being so scared, terrified. She wants to feel safe, she wants to feel secure, sound. She wants to sleep through the night and wake up in her own room, not back in that mop closet in Ethiopia. He's woken up in Iraq before. Woken up in the Congo, in the south African seas.

Woken up in that shake in the Yukatan.

But he knows how to cope with it. And he knows that as much as he wants to be, she wants to be able to cope with it by herself, on her own. Her independence is precious to her, and those human traffickers stole it from her.

After another few lonesome minutes leaning against a tree that's planted next to a vacant bench, the doors of the building open again and a slew of people come heading out, talking among themselves. He smiles to himself when he sees her light pink fleece and blonde hair. "Hey!" She calls from as she steps off the steps. He shoves off the tree and swings the bag in his hand again. "The office is a bit of a drive so we better head out of I'm going to make it on time." She says, planting a chaste kiss on his lips while his senses are filled with her apple scent the instant she steps into his personal space.

"I got you something, beautiful." He says and lifts the bag up to her.

A bright smile instantly splits her face in two and her eyes light up with a happy glimmer. She grabs onto to black plastic bag and her hand dives in excitedly to grab onto to item inside. She rips the bag off and her eyes fall onto the object she's holding and her smile turns heavy in a flash. After a long, thickly silent moment, she looks back up to him, her heavy smile having fallen into a blank stare. "What is this?"

"It's something that will make me feel better." He says, deciding to just argue about it now.

"Arnold, I don't need mace." She says, letting the package fall down to her side.

"Pepper spray." He corrects her, looking away.

"Arnold..." She whines and shifts her weight.

"Helga, do you remember Nadine?" He stops her, becoming almost menacingly serious with the flip of a switch.

Her expression shifts briefly as she looks away and thinks. "From high school? Yeah." She says with a lift in her voice.

He lets out a hard breath and hardens his shoulders. "After high school, she got into Bowling Green on scholarship. Halfway through her second semester, she decided to get a day job as a waitress to get some more spending money. A week after she started, she was walking back to her dorm one night, alone... where she was raped, beaten, and left unconscious behind a dumpster where she wasn't found until morning."

Her face is pale. Her color drained quickly from her features and he can tell that her heart is pounding in her throat.

"She was in the hospital physically recovering for six months and now lives at home, where she gets visited by a psychiatrist four times a week, because the person responsible was never caught, and she can't even bear the thought of going outside again."

"Oh, my god..." She says under her breath.

"Rhonda visits her once a week. It's about the only outside contact Nadine can stand." He says, letting his voice soften a bit. Rhonda doesn't know he knows, it's supposed to be a well-kept secret. Nadine was brought back to Hillwood in secret by her parents. "But it's supposed to be a secret, so... keep it under your hat." He says and looks away, tucking his hands in his pocket.

"Arnold... I know that you're worried about me." She says and chuckles heavily. "And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a work in progress. But-"

"Helga," He stops her again, "I was lucky enough to kill the sons of bitches that touched you. The only thing I regret about it is not being able to do it again." He says through gritted teeth. "But Nadine doesn't have that luxury," He starts again with a wavering voice, "and if anything ever happened to you again-"

"Hey," She says softly, stepping up to him and putting a soothing hand on his chest.

He lets his eyes drift shut and takes in a deep inhale, letting her fill his scenes, drinking her in. "I've lost enough people in my life, Helga." He says, opening his eyes and looking at her. She looks up at him with a soft, loving gaze, full of caring and worry. "I don't need to lose you again."

She lefts another soft smile curl the edge of her lips and nods. After a moment, she looks down to the package in her hand and turns it over. "Well..." She starts, turning it back over, "I do like the pink."

His pen scratches across yet another form. An hour after his lunch break, which he worked through since he has something to prove, and there's nothing. Nothing but more paperwork. He though he had enough of this stupid paperwork to do as a uniform. He looks at the picture of his little sister and hardens his resolve.

"Hey, rookie!" The other detective's voice practically booms from the other side of the bullpen.

He looks up with an inward sigh. "Need something?" He asks.

"Ready for your first case?" Cooper asks, waving a file in the air.

The detective stands up quickly, smoothing down his tie with excitement and extends his hand. "Absolutely."

Cooper smiles over his mustache and turns the file toward him and hands it to him before tucking his hands into the pockets of his gray slacks. "Assault and battery."

His pounding heart falls flat, going from excitement to annoyance in one heartbeat. "You're putting me on a case of assault and battery?" He asks, making his disagreement very clear by closing the folder and letting it fall to his side. Cooper just grins. "What about this big laundering case? You got half the precinct on it!" He says in a raised voice, gaining a few looks from a few more of the senior officers.

"We all gotta start somewhere, rookie." Cooper says and puts two fingers on the bottom of the file, raising it back up, then waving his fingers around in a circle. The detective sighs and opens the file. "Guy claims he was attacked outside his apartment. Didn't put him in the hospital, but bruised him up something fierce."

When he reads the first name on the file, his annoyance only grows. "Why the hell are you wasting time on this? You got half the criminals in the city after this dirtbag and you want me to go scouring for the guy that got a few lucky shots in?"

"Connel claims he knows who his attacker is." Cooper says.

"Great, we can pin a damn medal on the guy's chest, then." He says, closing the file again.

But Cooper is very quick to set him straight with a pointed finger shoved in his chest. "Listen, rookie! We are the cops around here, got it? Now either one of two things is going on with this case; either you got some criminal going after another, or you got someone taking the law into their own hands. Either way, they belong behind bars. Now, hop to it, kid."

Knowing he's right, all he can do is nod seriously and roll his shoulders back. "You're right. I'm sorry, sir."

"Good." Cooper says and slaps his shoulder with a large, open palm. "Guy's waiting in the box."

The detective grabs his pen and small notepad, putting the file under his arm then heads out of the bullpen, down the hall to the interrogation room, where Roy Connell is waiting, his face still beaten and swollen. "Mr. Connell, I'm Detective-"

"About time!" He interrupts him. "I've been waiting here for hours."

"I'm sorry for the delay, Mr. Connell. Now, you say you were attacked outside our apartment?" The detective asks, uncapping his pen.

Ray lets out a breath and leans back in his chair. "What was your first clue?"

"What can you tell me about the attack? About what time did it take place?" He says, writing a few notes down.

"Mid-afternoon, about three o'clock maybe. I was walking out of my apartment when he grabbed me and threw me into an alley. I tried to..." He says, shifting his eyes away toward the door, "defend... myself, but he got the better of me."

"You drew on him but he wasn't having it." The detective clarifies.

A short sigh and a readjustment of his ass on the chair, he nods. "Yeah. Guy's a... Navy Seal or... Marine or something. He was hitting on my girl and got the idea that she belonged to him instead of me. Said he was going to kill me if I came near her again." Ray says and crosses his arms protectively across his chest. The detective knows that whoever his attacker was had him convinced that he was going to kill him. Bold.

"And... you believe him?"

Ray's eyes flash with anger back toward the detective. "The guy didn't even blink when he pointed that gun at my head and pulled the trigger. I'm telling you, the guy's dangerous." He says and leans back in the chair, looking away again.

"Alright, alright." The detective says and goes back to his notes. "You know this guy's name?"

"Yeah, it's uh... Shortman." The detective's throat goes into his throat. "Arnold Shortman."

His heart pounds inside his chest, his ears ringing. "I-I'm sorry, one more time?"

"Arnold Shortman. The guys' name is Arnold Shortman. He's blonde, five foot ten, maybe..." Ray stops when the detective shoots out of his chair and out of interrogation, heading straight for the Captain's office.

He slows to a stop right near his desk, seeing that the guy senior officer's, along with Cooper and a few more patrolman are eyeing him. "Detective." A voice breaks him out of his thoughts. The detective looks up to see his Captain standing in front of him. "Need something?" He asks challengingly.

The detective looks around to the uniforms who are still eyeing him. He's one of the youngest ever to make detective. This is his first case. Even if it is completely against regulations, he can't drop it. He has to see it through. "I got the name of Ray Connell's attacker, Sir. I'll make a few calls and bring him in immediately."

The Captain nods slowly before turning back around and shutting the door to his office behind him.

The detective sighs nervously and sits down, glancing briefly at the picture sitting on his desk. He picks up his phone and quickly dials the number. It rings just once before a male voice answers the phone. "Detective Gerald Johanssen to speak with Ms. Lloyd, please."