"You continue to touch me there Venturi I'm going to have to retaliate - and given that we have visitors so the retaliation can't be of a sexual nature you might want to move your hand." Casey said, her voice only slightly betraying the enjoyment she was actually getting from his groping.

"Spoilsport." Derek muttered in her ear.

Casey moved suddenly, turning around.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart." She said regretfully. "I'm just not the kind of girl that has sex in one room while her friends are lying in the next room."
"Friends plural? I thought it was just Bea in there."
Casey giggled. "That was because you were out like a light last night and didn't hear the creaky floorboards as Bea went to invite Jazz to join her."

Derek rolled only his back and pulled Casey close to him.

"Oh great! So my partner gets sex and I don't." He grumped.

Casey shook her head. "Oh I don't think they are there yet. If they actually spent the night anywhere near the centre of the bed it will be a miracle! But Bea didn't want him to sleep on the couch, and he accepted her offer. That, at least, is a good thing."

Derek kissed the top of her head.

"I hope you're right. To be honest, Jazz could do with a trip through the sheep dip before they move things onto that level."

"That bad huh?" Casey raised an eyebrow.

"He wasn't choosy for a while."

"Oh."

They were quiet then, just enjoying the nearness of each other.

"Since when did you start carrying your weapon around with you?" Derek asked out of the blue.

"Sorry?" Casey was confused.

"You said you had your gun with you last night. Since when?"

Casey shrugged. "Since I got back from London. When you told me they had been watching you for so long I decided I couldn't afford not to."

She looked up at him. "I'm very careful with it though and when I get back to work I won't be taking it with me."

"No. You were right to start carrying it. You should keep it with you all the time – when you aren't on-duty. Definitely to and from the hospital."

"I have to go through a metal detector every day, Derek. I know I can wear it then, I just…"

"Case, the one time you don't could be the one time you need it. I'll get Spike to talk to the hospital board about you keeping it in your locker."

"Oh great! Like the hospital board are going to like that." Casey said with sarcasm. "They'll regret giving me my job back."

"Casey, it's not your fault you need protection, it's mine."

"I know. But they aren't going to want a doctor with a homicidal maniac after her working in their hospital."

"Fine. Tell them you live in a bad area and you need the gun to be safe at night."
She rolled her eyes. "They'll move me into hospital accommodation."
"Just carry the damn gun, Casey." He snapped.
"I already was!" She sniped back.

And they were both left confused by the whole exchange.

"I love your egg and bacon breakfasts." A newly-showered and more mellow Derek said, sitting down at the breakfast table. "Some mornings it's the only thing that gets me up." He commented, pouring a glass of orange juice. "Well, that and you…" Derek winked at her across the kitchen.

"Sex and food." Casey stated as she cooked. "It's all there is with you, isn't it?"
"Nope. You forgot hockey."

Casey rolled her eyes as she brought him a plate.

They were equal in their household duties but when it came to preparing food, one of them was more equal than the other. Casey did most of the cooking because she liked her stomach and wanted to hold onto it a little longer. Derek could cook in a limited way but repeated meals of mac and cheese had no appeal for her.

As soon as the food was safely on the table in front of him, Derek pulled Casey onto his lap and kissed her deeply. Eventually he let her breathe.

"I'm going into the office this morning to see where they are up to with the investigation into last night and the trace on that guy's wallet. What are you doing?"
"I'm going into work." She said. "I want to clear my backlog of paperwork before I go back on shift. What time are you leaving?"

Derek glanced at the clock. "As soon as the other two have had breakfast. Jazz will need me to take him home to change."

"I think he's in the shower now."

Derek and Casey's eyes met. "I wonder if they…" Casey said.

"Me too." Derek replied.

Casey had already had her breakfast of cereal and fruit so she went back to her room to use the en-suite shower. As she emerged from the bedroom fully dressed a while later, Bea was also leaving the spare room. She was once again in last night's clothes although her hair was damp from the shower.

"How are you this morning?" Casey asked softly.

Bea shrugged. "Okay I guess." She looked up, and then suddenly, Bea pulled Casey back into the spare room and shut the door.

"Nothing happened. I know you know he didn't sleep on the couch but…" Casey's friend blurted.

"Bea, it's fine. You don't need to…" It was almost amusing.
"He held me. All night. He didn't try anything on, it was all very…chaste." Bea's voice had a certain distaste to it.

She frowned. "Maybe he doesn't find me attractive anymore. We never used to be able to lie like that without something happening between us. Maybe he just doesn't feel it any more."

"Or maybe he's so scared he'll frighten you away that he is taking things slowly." Casey suggested.

"Hmm…"slowly" is good, right?" Bea sounded like she wasn't sure.

Casey nodded. "Slowly is excellent. It gives you chance to decide what you want."

Bea opened her mouth as if to tell Casey what she wanted and the latter put her hand on her friend's arm. "Both of you." She explained. "You both need time."

Bea nodded too.

"It felt…right." She said finally. "Being there with him? It felt like being at home."

Casey smiled. "Of course it did."

"Dude, you do know that the walls in this apartment are ridiculously thin don't you?" Derek asked Jazz across the breakfast table.

"Which would be embarrassing if anything had actually happened." Jazz said anticipating Derek and shovelling egg into his mouth. "Besides, you think I didn't hear the bed springs in your room last night?"

"Any other woman, Jazz and I'd be coughing to that one. Casey however, refuses point blank to have sex with other people in the apartment."

"That's okay we'd have turned you down anyway." Jazz winked wilfully misinterpreting Derek's sentence.

"You have a sick mind, Ransome."

Jazz grinned.

"And," Derek went on. "You're in a really good mood for someone who just had a night full of nothing."

Jazz shrugged. "We cuddled. It's no biggy."
Derek raised an eyebrow. "You cuddled? Aw! How Quewt!"

"Knock it off, Venturi! I'm sure you and Casey do the cuddle thing all the time."

"Yeah. We're in love though. You two have this little thing called Thermonuclear UST going on. I know. Casey and I invented the concept – before the UST became RST of course. Cuddling for a couple in our position is normal. Cuddling between you two is like Gorbachev asking Regan if he wants to go steady."

"You're starting to sound as though you paid attention in your high school history lessons, Derek. It's frightening."

"Nah. I did however watch my dad's copy of "War Games" on repeat for hours at a time in Junior High."

"Now that was a movie!"

"Tell me about it! It was one of the few movies the entire family would sit down and watch together when Nora married my dad. The guys liked the almost World War three thing, although Edwin watched it for the geek-hero concept, the girls watched it for Matthew Broderick and Marti watched it for the Tic Tac Toe." Derek sniggered at his own joke and then looked up at Jazz. "What happened last night?" he asked, suddenly serious.

His friend sighed. "I told you. She let me share the bed with her and we cuddled."
"And?"

"And that's all."

Derek nodded. "You used to accuse me of being slow."
"I know. I'm starting to understand why you dragged your feet."

"So how difficult was it to lie there without touching her?" Derek speared some bacon.
"I touched her…just not like that."
"Exactly. How was that?"
"Absolute fucking torture!" Jazz confirmed. "But even if she was willing, I wouldn't have." He was quiet. "I need to do this right, D. I'm not screwing it up this time."

The name of the shooter, Carl Davies, gave them a picture, an old address and a rap sheet as long as Derek's arm. But it didn't give them a location for him or any clue as the mindset of Sal right now. It was a small step forward, but not a significant one.

They still couldn't work out why the guy who had tried to have Derek killed was holding back from trying again. No theory seemed to fit – other than the obvious one of him waiting for something.

As Spring became firmly established and the weather warmed up, Casey returned to work and settled in. Her new boss was a genuinely nice guy and this time when Derek met him they got on well. Casey particularly liked his wife and children!

The weeks passed by, and Casey spent what little down time she had going through the information in Derek's file. The file was large and stuffed with detail, but it was taking her so long to read it because she queried every detail, had them checking every fact. A long believer in the adage about a fresh pair of eyes, she was burning a hole in the page as though expecting the key missing link to jump up off the page.

It didn't.

Derek busied himself at work, closing the home invasion case and a few other big jobs. Once or twice he took a leave day and whisked Casey off to the country. They stayed in wooden cabins with log fires and warnings about feeding the wildlife, and they made love in the warm sunbeams cast through bedroom windows.

In some ways life was idyllic, in some ways it was absolute torture. The uncertainty of the future, the pain of their family not being able to share in Derek's life bit hard.

Nothing seemed resolvable right now. Everything seemed tainted by the past – including the $50 ring he had picked up from the pawn shop!

Derek had eventually bought a pot of the jewellery cleaner recommended by Jazz but it hadn't worked. For a moment he considered throwing the not-so-cheap dirty ring away, but something about how it linked Casey and Derek to their teenaged past stopped him. Cursing himself for a fool instead Derek took it into a respectable jewellers and left it to be cleaned professionally – well aware that he was throwing good money after bad.

In mid May, something changed. Actually a lot of things changed which made Derek suspect that some celestial being had flicked a switch or the planets had aligned or something.

He should have known something was up when Jazz came into work with the biggest box of doughnuts you have ever seen.

"You got laid." Derek guessed.

Jazz laughed. "Not yet." He said handing his friend a large chocolate-filled ring covered in sprinkles. "But I have hopes."

"I though you and Bea were waiting until your test results came back?" Derek said quietly so that the rest of the department didn't hear, thereby respecting his partner's privacy.

Jazz smirked. "Exactly." He said.

Derek looked blankly and then the fog cleared.

"They came back?"

"Yup. My whistle is as clean as a whistle!"

"Thanks Dude. That conjures up images I just don't want while I'm eating."

Jazz smacked him on the back. "Aw! There, there." He commiserated.

"What did Bea say when you told her?" Derek asked.

"That she was going to take Gamma out to lunch to celebrate."

Derek choked on his doughnut.

Jazz chuckled. "Obviously she wasn't going to tell Gamma exactly why they were going out for lunch, but you get my drift."

Derek shook his head in despair. "So what are you going to bring in when you finally do the deed? A box full of Cubans?"

It had taken a while and lots of small steps forward and large steps back, but gradually Bea and Jazz were re-building their relationship. A lot of the re-construction went on behind closed doors via late night phone calls and quiet coffee dates or just grocery shopping, but at least once a week they also met up with Derek and Casey to let their hair down.

Gamma was still sitting on the fence about it all, having witnessed the destruction of the original relationship. Derek and Casey however, were firmly convinced that this time Jazz and Bea were getting it right. It wasn't all hearts and roses as it had been when they were younger, instead now it was more realistic and therefore stronger.

"Mr Venturi?"
Half-distracted with work, Derek answered. "Speaking."

"It's Gregory Pratt from Rotheschilds." Derek frowned. "The jewellers?" Mr Pratt continued.

"Sorry. Yes, of course." Derek said, steeling himself for the news that the little metal ring he had purchased for the exorbitant price of $50 dollars was actually made of plastic, came from a cracker and had dissolved in whatever strong chemical solution they had used to try and make it justify the money Derek had paid for it.

"I was wondering if you could come into the store."

Derek rolled his eyes. Please tell me it didn't explode and damage property and now they want to sue me.

"Sure. Erm…would next week be okay?"
"Actually, Mr Venturi I was hoping that you could pop into the store today."

Oh god…this isn't good.

"Erm…things are a little busy right now. Can it wait?"
Mr Pratt made a non-committal noise and continued as if Derek hadn't spoken.

"You see our specialist cleaners discovered something and I think it's important enough that we need to talk. Soon."

"We're talking now."
Gregory coughed. "Mr Venturi. I don't really think it's something we can discuss over the phone."

Derek froze. Oh god! It's stolen! Shit! I'm a cop and I bought a stolen ring! I'm going to fucking lynch that crooked pawn dealer.

"I'll be there at four." He said resignedly.

If he went there this afternoon maybe he could get it sorted out without a fuss.

"It's worth how much?" Derek screeched like a housewife.

"Well, taking into account the appreciation and the sheer rarity of that size of pink diamond we estimate at between 100 and 150…" Gregory stated. "…thousand."

"Dollars?"

"U.S. dollars. I know there is little in it against the Canadian dollar currency-wise but when you are talking in these sorts of terms it is a difference of three thousand dollars."
"Is it stolen?" Derek asked, suddenly conscious of his career.

Mr Pratt smiled. "Oh no. It's quite clean I assure you. We've checked. It's a platinum band with a large pink diamond and several uniquely cut white diamonds. A diamond of that weight would have been recorded and it was - although no record of its recent whereabouts remains. There definitely isn't any record of its theft which would have happened.

Incidentally, the centre pink diamond has a name. It's called the "Pink Daisy".

It isn't one of the truly magnificent pinks, then you'd have a diamond of the value of $46 million dollars, but still…a small city jewellers like this…you've made my decade!"

Derek swallowed. "I paid $50 dollars for it."

"Then you are a very fortunate man, Mr Venturi."

"It was dirty." Derek said, still confused.

"Ah yes, well it would appear that it was covered in furniture varnish which gave it the appearance of being a golden colour. What this ring has been through one can only guess, but it is legally yours and it is worth a very large sum of money." He took a deep breath. "Which brings us to your decision."

"My what?"

"What would you like us to do with the ring, Mr Venturi? Obviously as a small town jeweller we would welcome the opportunity to sell the piece for you. I can assure you that small does not mean unconnected. I would be able to get access to the best auction house. Our fees…"
"I don't want to sell it." Derek said suddenly. "At least, not yet."

Mr Pratt looked taken aback. Derek hardly seemed the type to have a need for a $150,000 dollar ring.

"Oh…okay." Curiosity got the better of the store manager. "Can I ask what was the purpose of you purchasing this ring in the first place. In its condition as presented to us it certainly lacked something."
Derek smiled. "It looked like something from my childhood and I knew that someone special would find it amusing." He answered with the truth.

Mr Pratt laughed. "I'm sure that person would find it even more amusing right now."

Derek laughed too. "Yes. She would." He said thoughtfully.

"Amusing, unbelievable and possibly quite frightening." He snorted to himself. "Just like Casey. How appropriate!"

"Well, it's your ring Mr Venturi and therefore it is up to you to decide its fate. I've arranged temporary insurance cover for you which you will need to confirm so you will be fine to leave with the ring today. I will however leave you my business card and request that should you decide to part with the item you will give me a call. I will be happy to deal with its sale on your behalf."

Yeah! Thought Derek. I'm sure you will be at 2% commission.

He took the ring in its new, ridiculously simple velvet box, signed the paperwork and slipped the box into his inside jacket pocket. He zipped it carefully and left the store.

In his pocket was a $150,000 diamond ring he had bought for Casey as a joke. It had cost just $50. The question was what the hell was he going to do with "Casey's ring"?