Disclaimer:All of the characters are the property of Dick Wolf. I thank him, the writers, the directors and all the great actors who brought them "to life" for our benefit. Any "liberties" I have taken with them stems from my fond admiration (and a few personal quirks I will seek "help" for).

AN: This story is not set within the accepted "canon" for the characters as it is only officially portrayed by the TV series. So I get to "fool around" with them in ways in which they've never been seen, stretching that to the limit and suspending the "reality" that is "fiction" to start with…now there's a contradiction in terms!!!

(And yeah Goren I know the proper word for that is oxymoron…please stop arguing and give me the map…last time you navigated we set out for Pennsylvania and ended up in Pensacola)

AN: A "watch cap" is sometimes called a "beanie" or a "ski hat" or "stocking cap" …and in the UK they can double as a "tea cosy"

THE LAST WATCH CAP

Bobby Goren looked out the bedroom window of his apartment. The weather forecast last evening had been right. New York was getting the first heavy frost of winter and the street below and the roof of the block opposite, twinkled with tiny clear and white crystals that had formed on the surface.

Bad enough getting a call that wakes you at 3 am, just as you are about to pitch a "no hitter" for the Mets. Even worse when it's game seven of the World Series, George Steinbrenner's wallet is receiving CPR in the owners box at Yankee Stadium and you are told two bodies just found in Central Park require your urgent attention. But when it's below freezing, life really starts to suck and he knew additional things needed to go in his pockets.

Bobby also knew something a lot of people didn't. That up to 30 of your body heat could be lost through your head because at any one time 16-20 of your blood was in that area. To keep the brain oxygenated and at three in the morning, two bodies were liable to be more demanding on the O2 consumption of the cortex. An occasion where conserving heat would be important.

He went to the bottom drawer of one of the dressers and after a short struggle, got it to open. The problem caused because it was stuffed to overflowing with woollen watch caps. Had enough in there to supply one to every guy on the forty-man rotation of the Mets and probably most of Yankees as well. One was actually in a pinstripe pattern, even if the colours were pink and yellow.

Bobby never set out to acquire so many. Didn't pick them up in the street or claim them from the subway system "Lost Property" offices. Nothing like that. They were courtesy of his Mom who never got out the habit of knitting them from odd balls of yarn she picked up in the sales. When he and his brother were kids they tended to lose them regularly, so right through each winter she kept up a steady supply.

Boys being boys they were careless of them, dropped them, left them behind "somewhere" and often used them for other purposes. With a stone wrapped in the middle they made a great alternative to a real baseball and he'd once put an injured bird he found in his to take it home. By the time he got there the bird had pooped twice in the dark blue cap and died, so it ended up as a woollen coffin to bury it in. Several got snatched off his head by bigger boys but that was better than being hit and in the end Bobby got so he wasn't so little any more.

But with each one that vanished, out came the knitting needles again and time you got up next morning for school, a replacement was waiting for you. It meant taking your chance sometimes on the colour, dependent on what the store was having a "clearance sale" of at the time. He could vividly recall one Saturday morning standing beside his Mom as she went through the yarn bin and all she was finding was pale pink and peach and something apparently called "lavender". At eight years old the prospect of being seen in those shades was enough to freeze your bowels in the middle of a heat wave.

Unlike gloves or mittens, which could be fixed with tapes or elastic to your coat sleeves, watch caps rather defied that solution. Though one time his Mom had threatened them with that when they were losing them at a higher than usual rate. Mom never did find out they "lost" two thanks to stuffing them with stones and leaves and stapling them together to make a football. More accurately it was four, but Jimmy Cooper was responsible for the second two, which ended up in the lake. But then Mrs Cooper bought he and Ralph those hats with earflaps, were useless as a football and Jimmy did go on to get a trial as a quarterback for the Jets.

They tolerated the gloves fixed to their coats through first to about fourth grade because most other kids had to endure the same. And realised it was impossible to expect Mom to knit two pairs of gloves overnight. Watch caps were easy, she knew the pattern by heart and seemed to make automatic adjustment to the size as they grew. Perhaps realising when Bobby came home with the tips of his ears a luminescent pink and blue the next one could use being a little larger.

Even when they entered their teens Mom was still producing new watch caps, when their uses and the reasons for the attrition rate changed. His brother would stuff small items he'd shoplifted under his to get them out of the store and Bobby would not deny a red one of his came to a nasty end. It was either throw up in that or in the back of his friend's, Dad's car one night after too many illegal beers. Simple choice really and helped them evade detection over that night's excesses. And at fast approaching six feet two it was stretching credibility to say, "a bigger boy took it and ran away". Still intoxicated when asked to explain its disappearance, Bobby thought he might have laid the blame on a flock of seagulls desperate for nesting material.

As he surveyed the rainbow of colours and the drawer full of the knitted watch caps, Bobby knew they were in many ways symptomatic of Mom's illness down the passing years. She didn't seem to realise the two of them were not kids any more to lose them quite so often as they once did. Or in latter years, to comprehend it was his brother now "lost" a lot of the time; such there was only himself to give them to. And there was no doubt however she acquired the wool once she was institutionalised, neither Mom nor the purchaser gave much thought to colour. Hence the yellow and pink he'd never wear. Even if he did have the "social confidence" it would certainly require which you lacked at eight. To say nothing of the size, badge and a gun would tend to make any "smart ass" think twice before saying anything negative.

Each one Mom gave him when he visited he accepted graciously and brought home to put in that drawer. Bobby had no idea how many there were and he only ever wore about half a dozen of them. Didn't need elastic any more to prevent him losing them and these days if he found an injured bird he'd likely pull it's neck to save it further suffering. But still being able to knit a watch cap was one of the few things Mom's physical and mental faculties allowed towards the end. And whatever else about him had changed, the tips of his ears would still go painfully red in this kind of weather.

Bobby reached down to pull out the one in a pale green, but as he did so another fell out on the floor. In thick wool it didn't have the fancy stripes and patterns she once worked into the design for them. Ones that did make theirs a little out of the ordinary and which she hoped would help or encourage them not to lose the latest. A few kids, who did not have Moms with her skill, rather envied those. He picked it up giving it a gentle squeeze.

It felt so soft he reckoned it was that wool baby clothes were made from. It was even a shade of blue they called "baby" or "powder" and one reason he'd never worn it. Perhaps even though it was size to fit him now, Mom in her condition still thought of him as her "baby"? And of course the stitches were simple and uneven in tension and made at a time when it probably took her a week of effort to finish, not just a few hours. It was as if that watch cap embodied her situation, her pain physical and mental at the end, because it was the very last she ever made for him.

"Cute hat Goren" smirked some cop. "Where'd you get it? RockaBuyBaby?"

"Where's the damn CSU team?" he muttered.

The "last" watch cap was on his head. Keeping it as snug and warm, as it was when he was eight. Thanks to his Mom and her knitting needles.

AN : A "tea cosy" is something you put over a "tea-pot"…into which BOILING (not hot/tepid/luke-warm) water has been poured…despite the efforts of a few enthusiasts the eighteenth century to prove river water in Beantown, Mass. a suitable alternative.