Thanks for all the love! All you readers rock. Over here on my end, I'm crossing my fingers that I can keep up this every 3-5 days posting pace. I'm hoping everybody's Thursday is going excellently.

Rated M: for one F-bomb. For shame, Maddie.

(x)

It had been two weeks and one day since his partner got locked up, and Harvey Bullock wasn't any closer to springing him than he had been the night Gordon walked off the van and into the bowels of Blackgate.

Of course, lately he'd been spending most of his waking hours attending to his open case that would not die. He and Alvarez slapped cuffs on a slew of colorful Johns who all had two things things in common. 1.) They weren't repressed, stab-happy serial killers. 2.) Alvarez in a vision of pink taffeta stood their little soldiers at attention.

At least their long list of arrests proved to Barnes that they were doing more than just killing time in the best little whorehouses in Gotham. Harvey had a dark thought. … Just like their murderer at large.

Harvey leaned back his head and generously tipped back his flask. When he sat back upright, he found himself staring right into the fresh, beautiful face of Doc Caliente. He blinked and gave her a quick once-over. She looked tired, very preggo, and …

...Happy.

Lee graced him with a shining smile. A glowing one, you might say. Pregnancy looked good on her. Just like everything else she wore. He tried not to frown and arch an eyebrow, and he attempted to smile instead. He was sure it made his face look caught somewhere between a psychopath's and a chimpanzee's. "Hey, doc. What can I do ya for?"

She placed a hand lightly on her baby bump. "I just wanted to thank you." She leaned in and lowered her voice, as if sharing a secret. "For bringing back the note." She pursed her lips in an adorable way. "I really needed it. It couldn't have come at a better time."

He surrendered immediately to frowning and raising an eyebrow. "What note?"

Lee grinned, megawatt this time. Right before she winked. "-Exactly.- What note?"

Okay. Subtle.

She placed a warm hand on his shoulder, before she passed by his desk.

His mouth opened, empty of a response, and his eyes followed after her, as she left out the door.

Actually it was subtle. A little too subtle. What the hell was she talking about?

Harvey scratched his neck and ran his hand through his longish hair that fell down to the collar of his shirt. His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a long string of dry, whooping coughs that sounded like a bout of emphysema trying to happen.

He looked toward her office. Madeline went and caught the plague. Of course, she still came to work so she could infect the entire police department right along with her. She had the decency to quarantine herself in her office, but it wasn't like that'd magically stop her virus from going airborne.

Harvey frowned again. But that wasn't the only thing keeping her away. Even before she starting hacking up a lung, she'd been avoiding him. If he could have bottled up the nervous energy radiating off of her, they'd be able to run the lights in this place for a week. He figured it probably meant she was getting some strange on the side that she didn't want him to know about. The idea didn't exactly thrill him, but he understood it. She kept her shit tight. Menfolk were bound to notice. Props to her for not rubbing his face in it, really.

...But even that didn't quite solve the mental jigsaw puzzle to his satisfaction. He swigged back his flask one more time. So all right. Something was up with Doc Caliente, and something was up with Madeline, too. Lee gets a note, mostly definitely from Gordon and most definitely from the prison, and she thinks Harvey's the postman. Except it didn't get there by him, by the Pony Express, or by carrier pigeon.

Harvey thought about poking around through the M.E. lab. He thought about maybe waiting until Madeline took her germs on home to run a little light surveillance in her office.

Then he discarded both impulses as he remembered who he was dealing with here.

With a steaming hot styrofoam cup of Lipton in hand, he thumped his shoes loudly as he stepped up to her office. Old habit. So she wouldn't spook.

He walked up to her doorway to find her slumped over her desk, red-nosed and sniffling. Reams of paper, yellow legal pads, and file folders lay strewn across her desktop.

He rapped his knuckles lightly on her open door. "I didn't know candidates for pneumonia were allowed to come to work."

She blew her nose loudly into a kleenex. "It's all fun and games until you catch Gotham's version of Avian flu."

He held out the cup to her. "Figured you could use some room service."

Madeline coughed in a honking, chest-rattling fashion. She pushed herself into a sitting position and gratefully accepted the cup. "I was just thinking that I wanted some tea, except I didn't want to have to get up and make it myself."

"Guess that's why people have butlers." He pointed to the chair by her desk. "Cool if I sit?"

She swiped strands of hair out of her face before she raised the cup to her lips. She said in a scratchy voice, "Not sure you want to be doing that. You better keep your distance or you're gonna be next."

"Uh-huh." He took a seat anyway.

Madeline blinked her gaze away from his and stared down at the slew of papers in front of her. After taking a sip of tea, she idly organized her desk while he sat there.

Eventually, she glanced up at him with an earnest expression.

Harvey asked, "So how'd Gordon look when you saw him?"

She looked at him and blinked.

He shrugged. "You gonna tell me about it now? Or do I gotta wait another couple days for you to crack?"

She muttered that he was un-fucking-believable. "So what? Now you're following me?"

"How 'bout I didn't even have to get up from my desk to piece this one together." He added flatly, "Also, I didn't know for sure. Nice admission of guilt though."

Madeline made a weak noise of frustration and averted her gaze. They sat in heavy silence for a few moments. If Harvey read her right, she was deciding which way she was going to play it.

Finally, she openly rolled her eyes. Then she caved, just like he knew she would. She motioned, saying, "Shut the door."

Some things about Madeline had changed over the years. He found himself glad to see that part of her hadn't. Harvey got the door and once again took a seat.

She ran her hand through her red head of hair, which was flat and a little damp, no doubt due to her running a low grade fever. She stared off for a long moment, before she said, "I saw Gordon two days ago."

He suddenly got a image of her walking through the front doors of Blackgate wearing a pair of those plastic, black Groucho Marx glasses with the mustache that only ever seemed to show up in Muppet movies. Then he consulted his mental calendar, and he frowned. "Thought they didn't have visiting hours on Wednesdays."

"They don't. I used my backstage pass."

He squinted at her. "... What's that supposed to mean?"

She sent him a look. Harvey knew the expression.

He let off a heavy sigh and ran his hands over his face. "Christ Almighty…" When his hands fell down, he opened his mouth, closed it, and then said, "How?"

"You know, I was initially worried about the logistics of it, but it was alarmingly simple. I might make an anonymous call just to let them know how easy it is to bypass security when this is all over."

"So you busted into Blackgate. You're serious right now?"

"This is my serious face."

He muttered his disapproval. "No. Hell no. This ain't the way."

Her voice held a warning. "Harvey-"

"I thought I told you to stay out of the way. I told you to back off of this."

She didn't mince words. "He's in deep shit, okay? He needs help." Then she added, "Not to mention that him being locked up inside Blackgate makes exactly no sense anyway. It's like backwards day. The whole situation is like two plus two equals string beans."

Once again, she'd rather play junior detective. Getting herself in shady situations and giving him a heart attack. Harvey raised his voice. "I don't want you takin' this on-"

"Don't tell me not to take it on." She said simply, "This is who we are, okay? This is what we do."

He hated it when she made choices like this. She may as well stand up and say, you know what my life needs. More stress and danger. Because that won't make everything worse.

Madeline saw him growing quiet and immediately assumed that was a positive. She sat up and said, "So. Are we good here?"

"No, we are not good here," he mouthed back angrily. "I was sitting here about to say that I can't believe you just did this shit. But then, you know, the more I thought about it, the more it sounds exactly like something you'd go and do."

There was a bitter twist to her mouth. "If things made sense, your partner wouldn't be in a prison cell right now, and I wouldn't have to break in to schedule a session with him. But the fact of the matter is that this is not a city that respects things like reason and order. So sometimes…" She ignored his groan and said, "Sometimes we need to improvise."

Improvise. Like she was testing out talking points from a corporate training and development seminar. He said with authority, "Yeah, well, that little field trip's the last one you're gonna take. It's over. Done. You're gonna stop with this foolishness."

"The hell I am."

"The hell you're not."

Madeline looked unimpressed with his assertions. Intimidation had always been his staple, but it never worked like it was supposed to with her. Though her voice was hoarse from her cold, it took on a slightly more diplomatic tone. "Look, I'm not… I'm not saying you're wrong. And I'm not trying to disrespect your position. I'm just asking you to consider things from my perspective for a minute or two."

He tried to get himself under control and shook his head. She slumped back in her chair, arms crossed, and appeared to be working up to her next sidetrack, when another likely thought hit him. "You rope Wilson Bishop into this little high jinks?"

Madeline opened up her hands. "It's like one of those Han Solo, Chewbacca life debt things. It's not like I've got one with anybody else."

He rubbed his brow. "You stop to think about what Wilson's gonna do for work after you get caught?"

She looked at him with open indignation. "You think I didn't already consider that? Even if I'm caught, he won't be. We've got a system." Harvey muttered something under his breath after that, but Madeline did a good job pretending that she didn't hear it. "Even if it all goes to hell, I'll find him another job. He knows that."

He got back on point. "You stop and think about what's gonna happen to Gordon after you get caught?"

She turned her grave face away. Then she took a deep breath and said, "I spent two years working with men who found their way into that prison. When it comes down to it, there are the guys who can do hard time and guys who can't. The ones that make it through have constant, regular reminders that there is a life waiting for them on the outside."

Harvey hunched over in his chair. "You think I'm not doing that?"

She shook her head. "Don't-"

"How many times we gotta go through this?" His voice hardened, "I cannot have you doubtin' me-"

"Honey." The crisply spoken word caught him up short, which was probably why she said it. "We both know all about where that one leads. And I really don't think we need another shouting match on the books. Do you?"

Weird, full pressure pounded in his ear drums. He ran his hands over his face as his head swam with too much everything.

Madeline gave him a moment to absorb and to process the current situation. When he looked back up at her, she said, "Harvey, this whole town is against him. That whole prison is against him. Right now, he needs whatever he can get. If I can help, I'm going to."

They both sat, looking at each other. He regarded her for a second. "... You ever stop and think about what's gonna happen to you when you get caught?"

It seemed as though she'd been patiently waiting for him to voice the question. "I know this detective down at the GCPD. He can be sort of an ass when he wants to be. But he's got some morals and he cares about people, even though he hates when people notice. I figure maybe he can pull some strings and bust me out."

Watching her, Harvey pressed out a long-suffering sigh. "Anybody else know about this besides Wilson and Gordon?"

"Just you, me, and the crickets."

Finally, he said, "Tell me what I gotta say to talk you out of this."

She watched him, but said nothing.

He stared away. "You're gonna get made."

She said, "I'll call you when I need you."

Something told him that he'd have to take that, because at the moment it was the best he was going to get. He could only shake his head.

Madeline knocked back a swig of tea. "How's your Jack the Ripper case going?"

"We got a drunk tank full of perverts who wanna take Alvarez out on a hot date."

"Sounds like you got dinner -and- a show."

He scratched his beard. "Also, I think I might be a pimp."

She lightly tapped his fedora. "We're gonna need to get you a fancier hat."