"You're quiet."

The case was over, Tia well on her way to California, and Chris seemed a million miles away. He had barely picked over his curry prawns and only took a sip of the beer he was dying to crack open when they first got back to his loft. He hadn't even leaned over to steal her egg roll yet, something he would have already nudged off her plate if this were a routine meal between them.

Lately, nothing seemed routine. Life had been off-kilter for them both, and Rita decidedly attributed it to exhaustion. Not their respective breakups or the trauma of the past year because that would be too uncomfortable to broach.

Now, here they were, side by side at his kitchen island, surrounded by fortune cookies and packets of duck sauce, knees turned in towards one another like any other day, yet a stillness permeated the space. It was unnerving, adding to an already strange week.

"You rethinking Tia's offer?"

Chris chuckled, shaken from whatever silence had settled into his bones. "No, not at all."

"Then what is it?" Rita pressed, popping a piece of Kung Pao chicken into her mouth.

Chris tapped his chopsticks pensively against the rice container, giving her a quizzical look. "The shrine in that motel room bothered you."

And there it was. It wasn't a question or a guess- simply a statement of truth. Rita froze mid-chew as his words settled around them. He could always read her mind and heart.

Yes, the creepy cacophony of photos was reminiscent of the one she saw a year earlier in Deborah Bouchard's bedroom. It was difficult to unlearn the gut reaction of seeing your best friend stalked. Seeing the both of them stalked. Because a year ago they were seldom apart, which she saw in living color, her brunette locks sliced and burned away from several of the photos in the twisted collage.

Chopping her hair a week later never felt so freeing.

Rita swallowed and nodded slightly as Chris patiently waited for her verbal reply. She chased her nod with a hefty swig of wine before setting her sights on his worried blue eyes, giving a shrug of acquiescence.

"Just reminded me of the other one. Bad memories, I guess."

Chris placed his chopsticks on the counter and grabbed his beer. He turned his legs closer to Rita's, practically entwined with her chair. "You know, we've never talked about it."

Rita shrugged a little again, tipping her chin into her shoulder. "Never seemed to be a good time."

"How about now?"

In the past, Rita would have deflected. She would have changed the subject and told him it wasn't a big deal. Maybe she had matured, or maybe she was simply tired of running because she confidently proclaimed, "Okay… how about now."

She swiveled and slid off the chair, maneuvering past Chris' legs, and walked around to the other side of the counter. His closeness, while usually a comfort, felt claustrophobic. She was unsure how this conversation would go and needed space to breathe.

"Where do you want to begin?" Chris offered carefully.

"Well, let's start with the shrine, I guess." She tucked a wayward piece of hair behind her ear, a nervous habit attributed to difficult conversations. "Do you remember any of the pictures?"

"I don't remember much about the night itself, fleeting memories at best, but I saw the crime scene photos afterward. So yeah, I think I have the entire thing memorized." He set his beer down and leaned on the counter. "There have been two times in my life that I've been truly terrified, and that shrine was one of 'em. Sammy, I-"

"-She had been following you for months."

"Yeah," he exhaled. "The both of us."

"We were too close," Rita blurted, her cheeks flaming with an undercurrent of exasperation. She saw the flicker of hurt in his eyes, but she didn't back down. She meant this.

"What do you mean by that?"

She paced, another habit when she tried to work out a theory or prove a point. "Face it, Chris, she thought she had competition. She hated me because she thought we were together. I was cut out of three-quarters of those pictures she took."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"It means everything! Boo Maxwell was hired to kill me because we were too close. George was shot because we were too close. Don't you see?"

Chris was quiet, staring at the floor, refusing to meet her eyes. "You blame me."

"What? No, of course not. I-"

"-You think I led her on, made her chase after me. It's my fault you almost got killed."

"Chris, I don't think that at all. Deborah was delusional. You did nothing wrong."

She didn't realize how heavy their breaths were, how loud their voices had become while resurrecting Deborah's ghost. The guilt from both sides swirled around them, talons of remorse digging into their veins. Their friendship had never felt so fragile before.

"I have gone over and over it in my mind, Sam. We went on a few dates and had a few laughs. I remember her asking me out again, and I felt like life was too busy- work was always insane, and I didn't think anything was there anyway, you know? I politely turned her down, she seemed to take it well, that was that."

"Chris, other than the trial prep you were doing with her that week, when was the last time you had seen her?" She sees a flicker of something pass in the blink of his eyes. "Chris, c'mon, tell me."

"The day I thought you were dead. She caught up with me in the hallway at work, offered her condolences, and asked if I wanted to come back to her place for a drink and a shoulder to cry on." He winced, and Rita couldn't decipher if it was from the chilling memories of Deborah or the haunting reminder of Rita's almost death.

All of a sudden, it clicked.

Deborah saw him at his worst: the other time he felt terrified when he was mourning her. Deborah saw him broken and devastated, inconsolable.

She saw. And she realized. And she obsessed. And then she plotted and planned for Rita's actual demise.

It shouldn't sadden her, but it does because it proved her theory.

"See, Chris? We were too close."

"What do you mean by were? Why is it past tense?"

"Maybe Deborah had a point."

"She had a point? She was mentally unstable, and you think she had a point?"

"Tia's not mentally unstable."

"Tia?" Chris rubs his forehead, frowning. "Sam, I'm not following. What does Tia have to do with this?"

"She thinks we're together. Everyone we've ever met thinks we're together."

"So what? Let 'em think what they think. I don't care."

"But what if there could have been something with you and Tia, and our friendship got in the way? Look at you and Jillian, you were in a committed relationship, and you broke it off because you didn't want to leave me. I mean, who does that?"

"Us. You refused the promotion in San Diego with Captain Bob. Eric was never going to be your Prince Charming. You're stalling on taking the Lieutenant exam because you don't want to break up our partnership."

"-I know, Chris. I know."

Their blames and admittances felt both accusatory and cathartic. They knew what they were, they loved what they were, but sometimes it was ridiculously complicated. Rita placed her hand atop his, instantly calming them both. A silent apology as they linked fingers in solidarity.

"Sometimes I get a little tired of defending us, defining what we are. I feel like we always have to protect it in some way. Eric, Jillian, Deborah, our superiors, fuck, even Tia… I'm just frustrated, I guess. Look, this is why I didn't want to talk about it. It was just a really scary time for the both of us and… I'm still not over it."

"If it helps, I'm not either. I never want you to be in danger like that ever again. But if you think I'm going to apologize about our friendship to anyone, I'm not."

"Neither am I."

"Good." He smiled, genuine, a grin he saved just for her, before reaching across the counter and grabbing their Chinese dessert.

"Not another fortune cookie, Sam."

"I liked the last one. Come on, where's your sense of adventure?"

She gave him a smirk as they opened their cookies, pulling the paper messages from the cracked openings.

"No way!"

The contents revealed twin messages, each with the same saying as the one from their lunch break at the beach the week before. Destiny is right under your nose.

"Wow, there must have been a printing error at the fortune cookie plant." He joked as he tossed a piece of cookie into his mouth.

She playfully swatted his arm, although her mind wandered. Maybe the universe was trying to tell them something they weren't ready to face.