Author's Note: Thanks for your review Demosthenes23! This isn't an AU. Julia is still working as a psychiatrist. I set this fic a bit into the future to avoid addressing Brackenreid's situation at the send of season 7 (as I am sure the writers of the show will do much better than I ever could) and also to make the wedding more impending in the timeline.

As usual, let me know about any mistakes you notice, but also please review if you're enjoying this :)

...

Julia perused the dress patterns, eyeing each one carefully before rejecting it. Emily watched over her shoulder, and every once in a while one of the women would make a snide comment about a dress, the other would laugh, and their march through the carefully organized drawers of Butterick patterns would continue.

"Julia, are you actually planning on sewing one of these yourself?" Emily asked, eyeing her mentor suspiciously. Julia laughed.

"Not at all! I don't have your natural talent for sewing. I'm going to pick a pattern, buy some material and have one of my former patients sew it for me. Her family put up more money than they had to have her treated in the asylum, so I have become a loyal customer to her. You should see the work she did for my dress that took a tumble off of my bicycle with me. You'd never known I had torn it to shreds!" Emily smiled, and pointed at the pattern currently in Dr. Ogden's hands.

"I would wager if you filled those puffed sleeves with helium you could have your nuptials in a cloud! You could take your entire wedding party with you." Julia let out a laugh. She was incredibly glad that Dr. Grace had agreed to come wedding dress shopping with her. If the truth were to be told, Ruby had offered to cut her tour of the Orient short and come to attend to every detail of the wedding, but Julia had begged her off. It apparently hadn't been a true offer, as Ruby hadn't offered a word of protest, and Julia was happier that way. Her sister had excellent taste, but was overly extravagant for Julia's temperament. The wedding would have wound up being at least two hundred people with a dress that was elegant and understated, but would have set Julia back by her entire inheritance. Emily had jumped in to help her with her wedding preparations, and had views similar to Julia: understated and elegant, yet frugal.

Also, she missed Emily's company dreadfully. She was the only female doctor at the lunatic asylum, which automatically brought on ire from certain other doctors, and her experimental treatments seemed to alienate the rest of the staff. Even the nurses seemed to be unsure of how to interact with her, as if they were afraid by being near Julia they would catch some of her radical ideas. Julia missed the intelligent, welcoming, feminine company that Emily provided. If truth be told, she had found her social circle had dwindled almost entirely. After school she had lost touch with many of her friends, and working in a morgue had left few chances to socialize with her coworkers without drawing the ire of their wives. After Darcy's death, his social circle had left her completely, and since the dreadful experience of Lavinda's bachelorette, the rest of the Dominion Women's Enfranchisement Association had avoided her like the plague. Now, the only three people she felt particularly close to were William, Ruby and Emily.

"What about this?" Emily grabbed the pattern in Dr. Ogden's hands. "It has a sleek design, which will frame you very well, and it is beautiful without being ostentatious." Julia looked very closely, and found she agreed with her friend. She wasn't quite frugal enough to need to repurpose her dress after the wedding, and this pattern offered a clear wedding design without being gaudy. Indeed, she was incredibly taken with it.

"An excellent choice!" Julia took the package and put it aside, and they continued their search. However, Julia ultimately found that nothing else came close to the perfection of the pattern Dr. Grace had chosen. So, Julia paid and the two doctors headed out for lunch.

...

"William is actually booking his church for the wedding. Being a staunch Catholic, nothing else would do, of course." She took a bite of cucumber sandwich. "We had to sit down and have a lengthy conversation with his priest. Because of the scandal surrounding myself and Darcy, Father McMillan said we could only be wed in his church if I converted to Catholicism." Emily's eyebrows shot up.

"You're becoming a Catholic?"

"Yes. And it is quite an arduous process. I am currently taking classes that the Father leads, which tend to be a bit on the dry side. We must run over the entirety of the Roman Catechism, which despite being a small book manages to drag itself out for months on end. William is my sponsor in all of this, so he takes me to church every Sunday and answers all of my questions. I don't think the Father McMillan is fond of me though." Emily rolled her eyes over her teacup.

"I am sure the presence of such an attractive woman makes him regret becoming a priest. He probably lays awake and night and imagines what could have been."

"Emily!" Julia admonished, but found herself smiling anyway. She had often thought that herself about the Catholic priesthood. Not allowing your clergy to marry seemed like such an ill thought-out and archaic practice. Despite her protests, she very much enjoyed Emily's sharp tongue. It was almost like having a little devil on your shoulder, who was willing to say out loud what you would not.

"Aren't you a little concerned about becoming Catholic?" Dr. Grace asked, her dark eyes peering deeply at Julia. "Being a Catholic isn't exactly easy in Toronto, especially when you already have the scandal of Darcy's death and your subsequent imprisonment following you. I would hate to see you denied your professional advancement because of some ridiculous system of religious discrimination." Dr. Ogden sighed and held her teacup of her hands, tracing the handle absentmindedly.

"I know it isn't easy, but I don't think the good things in life are. I love William, I love him with all my heart, and if all I have to do to be with him is show up at church every Sunday and for the occasional evening mass then it will be a small sacrifice compared to what we have already been through. I am lucky to have been able to have a career where I could jump from being a pathologist to a paediatric physician to being a psychiatrist. I feel that I have had an excellent career, and I know that whatever comes next, I will be fine." Emily continued to fix her with that dark, deep gaze, and Julia felt a chill go up her spine. There was something inherently sensual and erotic about Emily that always gave her a slight thrill. Some people, Julia had noted throughout her work, were just naturally alluring, and although she hadn't realized it immediately, Dr. Grace was one such woman. Julia always felt sexually charged when Emily was with her, and seduction seemed to pour out of her, in her deep eyes, her slow smile, the way she spoke with such confidence. Julia very much enjoyed the sensations she got from the younger woman, although this was all far too inappropriate to say out loud. It was Julia's little secret.

"What religion were you raised in?" Julia let out a small laugh.

"Being in the country, our only options for a nearby church were the Roman Catholic, or the Anglican. We went to neither, and if asked my father claimed he was a Unitarian, although I don't think he particularly held strong religious beliefs one way or another." Emily laughed out loud.

"The country-side Unitarian! That must have made him quite the talk of the barnyard." Julia nodded her agreement.

"Enough about my wedding though. I have been selfishly prattling on about myself for the entire day! What have you been up to, Dr. Grace? How are things at the morgue? With Constable Crabtree?" Emily slowly finished the bite of egg salad sandwich in her mouth, and recollected the events of the last week.

"We had a very blood case yesterday. Henry and George brought in a body that was murdered in a brutal way! Someone had smashed this man's ribcage on the left side, I believe using a hammer of some sort, and then proceeded to stab the man as deep as he could in the heart! All of this while we was still alive. The blood that had dried on the body was horrific, I can only imagine what the crime scene looked like."

"It must have been ghastly! Not to mention, it must have been a loud murder. Do they have any witnesses?" Emily shrugged.

"I haven't heard anything from William's investigation, but you are right, the victim must have been screaming horribly while he was being murdered. This man was attacked in his house, which he was preparing for his fiancée. Apparently he kept trying to run while this maniac was chasing him, so there were scuff marks and blood all over the home. I wouldn't think the bride-to-be would want to live there now."

"Such a passionate attack." Julia murmured, staring absently at the trim on the edge of the wall. "The heart is such a primal place too, representing the seat of emotion. It sounds like it was a very personal affair. And stabbing someone is also a very intimate act. You have to be physically very close to the person, close enough to smell them, to watch their eyes, to have their blood spatter on you." She shook her head. "I can't imagine hating someone enough to want to cause them that much pain and suffering." Emily shrugged.

"I can. I think that love can hurt into hate if one party harms the other. There is no betrayal quite like the betrayal of the one you love. Also, as we know, Toronto seems to become more violent by the day." Both women went silent for a moment, remembering the surprise attach that had been sprung on Brackenreid a year ago. When Detective Murdoch had caught the attacker, it turned out it wasn't a personal attack again Brackenreid at all. The man was simply a mugger, who happened to find a victim in the wrong place at the wrong time. 'Toronto the Good' was slowly becoming 'Toronto the Vicious'.

"Speaking of love, how are you and George faring?" Emily shrugged noncommittally.

"Alright. On Friday evening we are going to a panel on metaphysics and the question of the afterlife. It will consist of a Jesuit priest, a Dr. Simard from Montreal and an explorer who had travelled around the world examining the ways of death from one culture to another. It will be very interesting." Julia smiled. Dr. Grace never did expound on her relationship with George very much, unless he had done something that irritated her to a great degree. "Speaking of George, I should be getting back to the morgue. I am sure people were dying over my lunch break. When are we going to go and look for fabric?"

"Do you have time on Saturday?"

"Of course!" Emily reached for her pursue, but Julia made a tut-tut sound and waved her away.

"After all your patience, the least I can do is take care of lunch."

...

William walked into the publishing house, and was immediately hit by odour of hot ink and the warm temperature of the building. Large rollers spat out large sheets of paper which various men took away to be cut. There were more staff here than William had anticipated, and he found himself uncharacteristically agitated. Between planning the wedding and helping Julia with her Catholic studies, William felt like work was getting in the way of the rest of his life. This feeling of being disconnected from his job was unusual, and he hoped it would pass. He needed his wits about him to solve this particularly grisly murder.

The name of the victim was Peter Coswell, and had a heart-breaking story. His parents had immigrated to Canada from Bath, England and died shortly thereafter. Peter had been shoved into an orphanage, but through ingenuity and the right kind of luck, he had managed to work his way from being a paper boy to running his own business. An avid reader, he had started a publishing company for local authors, magazines and papers. His company had recently published a novel which was very well received, and publishing houses across the world were approaching him with offers of translation and international sales. Between that, and his impending marriage to the daughter of a wealthy shipping magnate, everything seemed to be going his way. So, who killed him?

Philomena McDonnagh, the man's fiancee, had agreed to round up all the workers of the publishing house so that Murdoch could interview them. The operation had five men working on the machines, as well as an older woman who performed secretarial duties. William had enquired if there was a bookkeeper, but Mr. Coswell had done the books himself.

"Hello." He called out, strolling to the secretary's desk. "My name is William Murdoch, and I am investigating the murder of Mr. Peter Coswell." The woman nodded promptly.

"I was told to expect you. I am Daisy Smith. I have been working for Mr. Coswell for two years, when his business became large enough to need of a secretary." William nodded, and opened up to a new page in his notebook.

"Phil Klazowski. I am the type setter."

"Bill Townsend. I cut the paper as it is printed off."

"Joe Tourigny, I bind the books."

"Mr. Klazowski, do you know of any reason why someone would want to kill your employer, Mr. Coswell?"

"Not rightly sir, no. I've only been working here six months, and he has been very kind and generous to everyone that I have seen. You couldn't ask for a better boss."

"Mr. Townsend, did it seem to you that Mr. Coswell was acting oddly as of late? Did he seem stressed or anxious?"

"No, the man was happy as a pig in shit, if you don't mind me sayin'. I don't know how he died, but I would suspect it was because his heart burst from happiness! He gave us all a little bonus on Victoria Day because of the success of his business, and as a celebration of his weddin'."

"Mr. Tourigny, do you know if Mr. Coswell had any rivals, in terms of business or in terms of his personal life?"

"Sure, every business has rivals! But nothing that I know that a man would kill over. He's having some success, yes, but I don't think it affects any other printin' business none."

William felt like he hadn't gotten anything from the first four interviews, but as he approached his fifth he instinctively knew something was going to be different. While he had approached the other men as they worked, his fifth interviewee seemed to be ready for him, with his arms crossed and legs apart in a stance. He wore a small, nasty smile on his face that distorted his slender features, and William immediately disliked him.

"Hello detective." The man called out.

"Hello mister..." Murdoch cocked his eyebrow and waited.

"Thomas. Thomas Batten."

"What do you do here, Mr. Batten?"

"I cut the paper after they come out of the press."

"For how long?"

"As long as it takes." He replied, a sardonic grin crossing his face. Murdoch shifted, feeling annoyed.

"I mean how long have you been employed here?"

"For two years, since this joint opened up."

"Always in the same position?"

"Yes." There was a way Thomas was eyeing him that made Murdoch feel uncomfortable, like the man was playing a game that William didn't know the rules to.

"Mr. Batten, where were you last night between midnight and two am?"

"I was at home sleeping."

"Can anyone confirm this?"

"Yes, I always pay a lovely young lady to watch me sleep for 6 hours in the event of this kind of scenario. I will ask her to report to the station house immediately." Murdoch felt his anger growing.

"This is a murder investigation. A simple 'yes' or 'no' will suffice." The man's eyes grew a little brighter, and William knew he was very happy that he was getting under the detective's skin. He attempted to put a cap on his irritation, and asked "Did you know of any enemies Mr. Coswell may have had, personally or professionally?" Thomas grinned a little wider and shook his head.

"Everyone has enemies, detective. Sometimes they wind up being the people we trust the most."

"But did Peter have any that you knew of?"

"No. Everyone loved Peter." The man seemed to lose a bit of his steam as his body slumped slightly, and he looked forlornly at the press. "Do you have any further questions, detective? My work is backing up and I'd like to go home for a bit of supper as soon as I can." William sighed.

"What did you spend your bonus on?" At this, Thomas let out a throaty chuckle.

"A train ticket."

"To where?"

"Some things are personal, William."

...

When William went to conduct his last interview, he could also tell something wasn't quite right. His last round of questioning involved a timid blond man named Timothy Wells. He was so incredibly eager to please that William had problems following the man's loquacious over explanations. Not for the first time, William shook his head to clear out the excessive chatter.

"So you were out for drinks last night?"

"Yes, yes I was."

"And you have friends that can verify this?" Timothy looked worried.

" I do, but you see Fred is out of town right now on a business trip, and I am afraid that Lauren, well, he has gone to see his sick mother in Ottawa and I don't know when he'll be back, and I think that John left before midnight struck, so he probably won't be a good alibi, but he had a friend that stayed longer, although I don't remember that friend's name, because I hadn't met him before, but he seemed like a good man, and then there was the other John but he was passed out drunk by 10 and we actually had to-"

"If need be we can phone Ottawa and have your alibi confirmed. Do you have names and addresses for these men?" Timothy smiled sheepishly, like a little boy who knew he was in trouble.

"Well, not exactly sir. See, we're a bit of a social club, but we really only meet randomly at that bar on Wellington street, the one that is Irish and has that weird word above the door, 'slain-tee' or something? Anyway, its just sort of a 'show up' thing, because someone is usually there, that is kind of our pub, but not always, and I never really bothered to get to know their names, because I-"

"Are you married, Mr. Wells?" He shook his head.

"I'm just very shy around girls, detective, and-"

"Do you know of any enemies Mr. Coswell might have had?"

"No, he was the most kind man in the world. He is a real rags-to-riches success story, but he hasn't forgotten what it is like to be poor. He is always donating money to that orphanage that he was at as a child. Too kind for anyone to have a grudge against him." William nodded, thanked Timothy and closed his book as he wandered to the front of the publishing house. It was five o'clock, and he had been at this for four hours. He was mentally exhausted, and needed time to properly process all the seemingly useless information he had been given. Given his gut feelings, Philomena was genuinely heartbroken, and the first four employees had nothing to hide. Thomas and Timothy, however, had rung William as being...off, somehow, in a way that he knew would bother him until he figured it out. But until that glorious revelation arrived, William was determined to get a bit of supper and to go and purchase Julia's wedding flowers.