So I wanted to thank you all for your amazing reviews(: This is actually one of my favorite stories I've written so far, so I seriously appreciate it! I'm home sick from school today so I'll be boredly writing allllll day longgg(; Be prepared! It's not even 10am where I am!

On a side note..., TOMORROW'S MY BIRTHDAYYY:D I'm already having a terrible birthday though, because I'm sick, I have gym class tomorrow which sucks, and all of my friends are in Mock Trial and they have a thing tomorrow all day so NONE of them will be in school. Awesome birthday, right? :| Well anyway, wish me luck with that... :p

Enjoyyy(:

They sat in the motel room, stunned and silent. How do you even react to losing your baby girl like that? Mal looked over at his wife, who sat on the bed. They had both stopped crying, not able to make any more tears come free.

"Th-the fireman told me," she began hoarsely, "That she probably just inhaled smoke and passed out, dying without any pain."

Mal sighed, now fighting some tears, "The fireman told me that they tell everyone that."

Natara fell silent staring at the ground and then whispered, "What are we supposed to do?"

Mal replied slowly, "…keep on living, I guess."

-The Next Day-

Mal and Natara, hand in hand, walked into the precinct. So what if everyone stared? So what if everyone saw their red, puffy, crying eyes? So what if everyone knew how much pain they were in? They had someone to talk to, and they weren't in the mood to stop for any pity.

"Captain Yeong," Mal stopped her on her way out of her office. "A word?"

Her face sank into the pitying look Mal had learned quickly to despise and she nodded, turning back into the room. "What is it?"

Natara spoke up, after not talking since their conversation the previous night. "We…we would like extended time off."

"Natara," she began softly and Natara also recognized the pity that she loathed. "I can't just put my two best workers on extended leave for who-knows-how-long at the same time. You must know that."

Natara stood up, now raising her voice, glaring, "And you must know, Captain, that we just lost our DAUGHTER," her voice raised to just below a scream and the bull pen fell silent outside, listening. "We just lost our DAUGHTER in a fire that took everything we own, and you can't give us two or three damn weeks off?"

Mal took her hand again and tugged her back into her seat. She sat silently sobbing again and he shook his head at Maria, who looked ready to get some help. "Alright!" she sighed annoyed. "Alright! But if anyone gets viciously murdered while you're gone, it's on YOUR conscience!" She volunteered a small, sad smile to the pair. "It's going to be okay. People deal with fires every day around the world. It's going to be fine."

With one more look of pure venom shot at Maria, Natara stood up, turned on her heels, and swiftly marched out of the office victorious as Mal gave an apologetic look and followed. They clearly weren't handling it well.

-Later That Day-

Mal silently stood in the doorway of their motel room's bedroom and watched Natara. She sat on the bed, tears silently falling and landing onto a framed picture of their little daughter of three. Megan …poor Megan.

The fire alarms were pounding against their eardrums as Mal and Natara bolted out of their bed. Megan's bedroom door! It wouldn't open!

"Mommy!" she wailed from inside. "Daddy! It…It's…."

"Get in there!" Natara shrieked at her husband.

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Mal yelled back, coughing from the smoke. "How did this even…?"

He looked to his side, where his wife was no longer standing. She was lying on the floor, passed out from the smoke. He himself was feeling dizzy, but continued to bang helplessly on the bedroom door of their daughter. Megan's cries had stopped. He heard his ears ringing…slowly, slowly, his vision faded to black. The last thing he heard was, "They're here! They're over here! Quick, I think they're…."

And then he passed out.

Jerking suddenly back from the past, he looked back over at Natara, who had spotted him. Mal walked over and wrapped his arm around her waist.

"It's my fault. I should've gotten into her room."

"Mal…that's just a stage of grief..blaming yourself," she rubbed his back soothingly.

"Oh yeah? Did you blame yourself yet?"

"Not yet, but we don't know how the fire started. I've been thinking over everything I did that night. I remember I definitely turned everything off… Nothing was cooking. I just…I can't remember…" she sighed.

Mal realized they both still had the faint smell of being around smoke, which brought more tears to his eyes. He realized he wanted nothing more than to murder someone right now, one of the firefighters maybe, for not saving their little girl in time.

"I could kill one of those damn firefighters," he said quietly. "Why can't they just do their jobs?"

"The second stage of grief," Natara whispered, hugging him. "Anger."