I own nothing you recognize. Please don't sue.

Its been way too long

"My old friend, I apologize

for the years that have passed

since the last time you and I

dusted off those memories.

But the running and the races

the people and the places

there's always somewhere else I had to be

Time gets slim

my old friend."

-My Old Friend, Tim McGraw

Carmen knew of Gavin Moran. She had heard the whispers when she first started about Flack's training partner tampering with evidence. A soda can left at a liquor store robbery gone bad. The clerk had been shot by gang bangers. Moran had been the responding officer, the one who had written down the dying man's last declaration, and when one of the descriptions of the perps was an exact match to an illegitimate son no one knew anything about, he scratched out all mention of the kid's name and took the soda can that held his DNA.

Mac had insisted that Flack be part of the investigation, despite the fact that Moran was a friend and Flack felt torn between protecting that friend and doing the right thing for the job. He hadn't even known about the son and Flack had thought he knew everything about the guy. He knew Moran's wife, his twin daughters. Nothing about a poor Hispanic girl he'd met on his beat and carried on a relationship with and fathered a child with. Flack had been crushed that Moran had done that to his family, and to his job. In the end, Moran was forced into early retirement to save his pension and his kid was protected for squealing on the actual bangers who did the deed.

Flack hadn't spoken to Moran since as far as Carmen knew. During the planning of the wedding , Samantha had told her that she had tried calling the phone number she got through the NYPD data base but it was out of service. There were no listings for a Gavin Moran in the phone book and the Moran's she did call had no idea who she was talking about. She thought it would have been nice if Moran could come to the wedding. Flack would be surprised to see him. In the end, she hadn't been able to track Moran down and the plans for a big wedding shelved in favor of an intimate ceremony in a judge's chambers attended only by Danny and Carmen. But Flack talked about Moran to Sam all the time, and about the guilt and anger he still harbored for having to be part of nailing a friend.

"Come on in." she said, pushing open the screen door. "I'll take you out back. He's out there with his kids."

"Never thought I'd see the day Donnie had kids." Moran commented, following her through the living room and into the kitchen. "He's got four, right?"

Carmen nodded. "This is youngest, Mikayla." she nodded to the cheerful, chatty baby on her hip. "She's almost two. And he's got three boys. Kieran whose going on nine and Daniel and Mackenzie. Twins. They'll be seven soon. And Don's an amazing father."

Moran shook his head in disbelief. "Wonders never cease to exist." he said. "She musta been a hell of a woman to make him settle down."

"She was. She was an amazing person. Great wife, incredible mother. Its just too bad they didn't get the happily ever after that they both deserved."

" I didn't even know he was married until a couple months ago and I ran into his old man. It's a damn shame what's happened. A damn shame. How's he doing with it?"

"He's coping at best. It was a hell of a blow. He's just trying to keep his head above water and go day by day. He's got these kids to worry about. They need him. And he needs them. But its going to take a long time for him to be whole again."

"If he ever is." Moran said quietly.

Carmen nodded. "How did you hear about it?"

"On the news last night. I heard the last name and knew it had to be some sort of relative. Then I saw the paper this morning and read it was his wife." Moran shook his head. "Damn shame." he repeated. "You knew her well? Worked with her?"

"She was my best friend. It went way beyond work. She was the sister I never had."

"Hell of a shock for everyone." Moran concluded.

"Its been tough." Carmen sighed and pulled open the sliding door that led out onto the deck.

Moran paused in the doorway. "Its been a long time since I've seen him." he said regretfully.

"He'll be glad to see you." Carmen assured him.

"I don't really know what to say." Moran sighed.

"Well, hello is usually a good start."

He smiled and followed her out onto the deck. He'd just stepped two feet out when Flack started coming up the steps towards the house. Talking to Danny over his shoulder and not paying attention to where he was going and who was in front of him.

"Don, someones here to see you." Carmen said before Flack could reach the top of the stairs.

"Yeah? Who is it?"

He was tired of people coming to see him. Guys from the precinct that he barely knew other than to greet each other by their last names when they passed each other in the hall. That worked under him and in their heart of hearts meant well by stopping by and passing on their condolences to their Lieutenant. But he felt uncomfortable with discussing anything personal with people he barely knew. The only people he wanted in his house, attempting to get him to talk about what had happened, were those closest to him. He hated seeing the pity in peoples eyes, the looks that told you they were thinking 'that poor bastard'. He felt sorry enough for himself and his kids without being made to feel worse.

And the flowers... it was beginning to look like a funeral home in the living room. Danny was starting to complain that the strong fragrances were making it hard for him to sleep. The constant parade of mourners offering their condolences was getting to be a littte much. Not to mention the members of the press that showed up announced on the door step or called looking for some kind of statement from him or any one close to him. What was he suppose say? My wife is dead. Some crazy, coked up piece of shit hiding out at what was suppose to be a secure scene decided he just couldn't allow the cops to find whatever evidence would lead them to him and took matters into his own hands. She shouldn't even have been in there alone. Stella had fucked up letting her go in there. He was bitter about that. Angry at one of his oldest friends. Angry at the department for not doing more, showing more. Angry at himself for not being able to protect her.

My wife is dead. My kids don't have a mother. And all people want me to talk about is whether or not I'm pissed at the department and Stella Bonasera. Instead of focusing on the life, they were focusing on the tragedy and the danger of the job.

Why couldn't people just give him some space to come to terms with what had happened? Time to pick himself up off of his feet and feel human again? And now another grieving member of the public who had no clue what he was going through had decided to show up at his house.

He looked up to where Carmen was standing and he froze in his steps. Time seemed to stand still. The two men standing there staring at each other, and Flack was taken back to that day fourteen years ago when he'd asked Mac to let him be the one to bring Moran in. The last time he'd ever seen Moran was leaving him at central booking. They hadn't spoken since.

"Da-dee!" Mikayla giggled and reached out for her father with her chubby little arms, breaking the silence. "Da-deeeee..."

Flack motioned for Carmen to hand him the baby.

"She needs to finish her breakfast." Carmen said. "There's cereal and banana on the table if you can manage to get her to keep it out of her hair."

"I know how to do it Carmen." Flack reminded her gently.

It was easy to forget the father side of Flack when all you mostly saw was the cop side of him. Other than outings she and Rick went on with the family or the birthday parties and special events she went to, she rarely saw the things he did with and for his kids. The mornings he let Sam sleep in and he'd cook the breakfast and feed the baby and take them all to the park afterwards. The way he'd get up to change dirty diapers or do a feeding despite the fact he'd worked a triple and had just gotten in, dead to the world. The simple, little things that so often were overlooked. There was more to Don Flack then a badge and a gun and it was easy to forget that.

"I know." she said with a smile and laid a hand on his arm as she headed down the stairs. "All right guys!" she yelled as she stepped onto the grass. "Whose butt do I get to kick?"

"You can't kick our butts!" Mackenzie exclaimed. "You're a girl, auntie Carmen!"

"And what's that suppose to mean young man?" she asked and grabbed him in a gentle head lock and tickled him until he was shrieking and giggling and down on the ground.

Flack smiled. Too see the kids that happy, after their mother was so viciously and suddenly taken away from them, was a bitter sweet moment. Because they were too young to understand fully what had happened, but old enough to realize she was never coming back. And watching Carmen with them, laughing and playing, he thought of Samantha and the childish, light hearted way she threw herself into every activity and play time, making up for her one less than ideal child hood.

"You got a beautiful family, Donnie." Moran commented. "You should be proud of them. And of yourself."

Flack nodded and looked back at the man that was once like a father to him. "What are you doing here, Gavin? How'd you even know where I lived?"

"I read about it in the newspaper." Moran explained. "I just wanted to come by and give my condolences. Called Mac Taylor. He told me where you guys were living."

"Been a long time." Flack said and climbed the stairs.

"Too long." Moran said. "I'm really sorry, Donnie. About your wife."

"Thank you." Flack's voice was barely a whisper. He'd almost convinced himself, playing with his kids, that Sam was still alive and that she'd out of the house any second to see what they were doing or join in on the fun. She was like that. A total hands on mother. He felt tears threaten and he cuddled his daughter to him and kissed her hair and breathed in that soft baby scent.

Moran laid a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "It's gonna be okay, Donnie." he assured him. "One day, it won't hurt so bad when you think about her. One day, when you look at a picture of her or remember her voice, your heart won't ache as bad as it does now."

Flack shook his head.

"It'll get easier." Moran promised.

"Yeah? Well right this second, it hurts like a bastard." he cleared his throat and blinked back the tears. "You want a coffee or something? We can sit down. Talk."

"I'd like that." Moran said with a soft smile and followed the young man who was once like a son into the house.

"Got yourself a nice little place here." Moran commented, looking around the clean, spacious kitchen as Flack prepared coffee for them. The baby sat in her high chair feeding herself banana and watching Moran curiously, every so often offering him a huge smile.

"Thanks... we worked hard for it." Flack sat two mugs of coffee down on the table and sat down across from Moran.

"I was surprised when your old man said you'd run off and gotten married and started having kids. Never figured you for the whole nuclear family type."

"Neither did I until I met her." Flack admitted, watching his daughter out of the corner of his eye.

"Musta been something to make you settle down." Moran commented.

Flack smiled and nodded. "She is." he said and then his face fell when he realized what he'd said. "Was." he corrected himself.

Moran paid no mind to it. The event was still fresh and speaking about her in the present was understandable. "How'd ya meet her?"

"She came to work for the lab from Arizona. She was originally from Brooklyn and circumstances found her in Arizona. She was the sister of one of the lab tech. Guy's a detective now. Never thought I'd see that day. Fell in love with her the second I laid eyes on her."

Moran smiled.

"She changed me, Gavin. She made me want to be a better man. She saved me. Gave me what I never even realized I was looking for. She was my entire world." he paused and sipped his coffee. "She still is." he said, watching his daughter, a sad, lost expression on his face.

"Da-dee..." Mikayla said and offered up another one of her giggles and a handful of mashed banana. She reminded him so much of Samantha. The baby may have had his hair and his eyes, but her smile and her laugh and those freckles on her nose and those tiny ears were from her mother.

"You eat it." he said, politely declining the mess of banana.

He'd wanted a little girl so bad. After three boys, he wanted a little princess. Daddy's little girl. The barrettes in the hair and the earrings in her ears and the little dresses. The dolls and ballet shoes to compensate for the trucks and the sports equipment already in the house. Sam had said they'd try one more time and that was it. Maybe they were meant to have all boys, she had said, and had teased him that maybe he only made boy making sperm. So they'd tried again and when that ultrasound tech had said without a doubt at the twenty week check that that was in no doubt a girl, he'd cried right there and then.

That's it, Sam had said on their way home afterwards. Next week you're going in to get fixed!

It made him laugh even now. He could actually hear her say those words in his head. And he was worried one day he wouldn't hear that voice anymore.

"I'm scared Gavin." he said, voice quiet.

"About?"

"That one day I won't remember what her voice sounded like or what her face looked like."

Moran stared at Flack's tortured face.

"That I'll forget everything good that ever happened. All the times we had together. The way it felt to wake up beside her every morning. The way her skin felt. The way her hair smelled. I don't want to forget."

"How could you? You got four beautiful kids and a lifetime of memories to help you remember."

"Ten years is not a lifetime." Flack said. "It's not near long enough."

"No one ever said life was fair, Donnie. and I know it hurts like hell right now and you're wondering how in hell you're ever going to survive. But you will. You'll wake up one morning and it won't hurt that bad. I promise you that. And maybe one day, when you're ready, you'll even go on with your life."

Flack bristled at that comment. His eyes darkened and his hand tightened on his coffee cup. "That ain't ever gonna happen."

"You don't know that." Moran told him.

"Yeah. I do. 'Cause I won't let that happen. There will never be any one else. Ever. I won't let that happen. I've already had the best. Wouldn't be fair to someone else to compete with that."

"You're kids will need a mother." Moran pointed out.

"They've got enough aunts to help out with that."

"She wouldn't want you to close yourself off like that, Donnie."

"You don't know what she would want." he said angrily. "You didn't know her. Half the people coming here to talk to me never knew her and all they can talk about was what a good person she was, what a great cop. That she wouldn't want me to be so sad all the time. Well I am sad. I feel like I'm going insane. My wife is gone and she's never coming back. I miss her. And I have the right to miss her."

"Of course you do." Moran said. "But..."

"There's no buts in this, Gavin. And I don't want to talk about her anymore." he got up from the table quickly and went to the sink to rinse his mug and stood there, his hands on the ledge and his head hung low and his eyes closed.

Gavin pushed his chair away from the table and went over to the younger, grieving man and laid a fatherly hand on Flack's shoulder.

"You don't have to." he said quietly.

And with that Don Flack Jr turned and put his arms around the man that he loved like a father and sobbed like a baby.

"You don't have to." Moran assured him, stroking Flack's back.

"Everything I ever had is gone." Flack said. "She's not coming back, Gavin. Ever. And I can't live without her."

"Yes." Moran told him. "You can."

"Your an ass, Messer!" Carmen called over her shoulder as she chased the errant soccer ball down the driveway. Sent flying by Danny, aimed directly at her head when she told him how skinny his legs looked in shorts. It was true. The guy had the palest, scrawniest legs she'd ever seen in her entire life.

The soccer ball hit the front right tire on Danny's SUV and she bent to pick it up. For the second straight day, there was a navy blue Ford Taurus with tinted wheels sitting directly across from Flack's house. Any cop knew that a Taurus with tinted windows meant there were plain clothes, IAB or even the U.S. Marshal's office camped out on your door step. It was there when she got up, and she knew it would still be there long after she went to bed. What the hell is that all about?

"Auntie Carmen!" Daniel bellowed from the back yard. "Hurry up!"

Kieran suddenly appeared by her side. He was phenomenally intelligent and well spoken for his age. And nothing got by him. "Why is that car always there?" he asked.

"Here, take this." Carmen handed him the ball. "You go back with your brothers and tell your uncle Danny I want to talk to him. Okay?"

"Are they bad people?" he asked, brow furrowed, his squinted.

God does he look like his father when he does that, Carmen thought. "No," she assured him. "Probably just friends of your dad making sure you guys are okay. Can you go and get Uncle Danny please?"

"Sure." he said and ran off down the drive way.

She stood with her hands on her hips, watching the car, looking for some kind of movement from inside.

"What's up?" Danny asked as he jogged up to her.

"You notice anything weird since you've been here Danny?"

He shrugged. "Not really. Why?"

"That car has been sitting there since I got here." she explained. "Does Flack have plain clothes sitting on his place?"

"Don't ask me, Carmen. What he does is his business. Come on, let's go back with the kids and-"

"You're not a very good liar, Danny. You never have been." she narrowed her eyes. "What's going on?"

"Nothing."

She glared at him, hands on her hips, lips pursed.

"Nothing, Carmen." he insisted.

"Danny..."

"Look." Danny sighed heavily. "All I know is that Mac's put some guys on the house to make sure whoever shot Sam doesn't come here lookin' for Flack."

"If it was random why..." Carmen stopped, putting the pieces of the puzzle together. "This wasn't random, was it Danny?"

He shook his head.

"What aren't you and Flack telling me? She was my friend, too. My best friend. And I love Flack and those kids and I don't want anything happening to them. So tell me what the hell is going on."

"The guy that shot Sam, DNA from the scene links him to the same family as the head guy of the Wilder crew. You heard about them, that Irish drug cartel Flack shut down a decade ago."

"How would they know it was Sam who was working that crime scene?"

"I think they just got lucky there. But this guy got away Carmen and no one can find him. And now that Sam's picture is spread all over the paper and in the news and they know they hit pay dirt, who knows what the hell they might try next. Retribution."

"It was over ten years ago." she said. "Why come back now?'

"Maybe they're looking to even the score. All I know is that that car is there for a reason and that reason is on the up and up. That's all you need to know." Danny turned and headed back down the driveway.

"Danny!" she called after him.

"Its all you need to know." he repeated. "Let it go, Carmen."

That was one thing Carmen could not to. Someone had taken away an integral part of her life.

She was looking for a little payback of her own.

Later that evening, as dusk was settling and the street lamps were coming on and the house was quiet, Don Flack sat on the edge of his six year old son's bed and tried, the best he could, to explain why mommy wasn't going to come back. Daniel had thrown a rare, yet intense temper tantrum over the way Carmen had cut his sandwich. Straight across instead of diagonally.

"That's not how mommy does it!" he'd yelled and threw it on the floor and burst into tears as he ran from the room.

Mommy always did everything right. All little kids thought that. And for five nights now mommy wasn't around to do the tucking into bed and the reading of the stories and the kissing and the cuddling in the dark and the runs for glasses of water in the middle of the night. She wasn't there to be the comforter of bad dreams or the one to let them climb into bed with her when daddy was late getting home. Such small things were major events to kids. And they were missing the routine. And her.

"I don't get it daddy." Mackenzie sat, his comforter pulled up to her chin. "Why'd mommy leave us if she loved us?"

"Maybe we were bad." Daniel reasoned. "Is that why she left? 'Cause we were bad?" tears sparkled in his blue eyes.

"Mommy didn't leave because you were bad or you did something wrong." Flack said. "She didn't want to leave you guys. She didn't have a choice."

"Did a bad guy get her?" Daniel asked fearfully.

Flack nodded.

"Is he in jail with all the other bad guys?" Mackenzie asked.

"Not yet. But he will be."

"When?" Daniel asked.

"Soon." Flack assured him. "But you guys have to realize that things are going to be different around here now that mommy's gone."

"I don't want things to be different." Mackenzie stated.

"When's she coming back?" Daniel asked.

"She can't come back." Flack replied.

"We won't ever see her again?" Daniel asked his voice shaking.

"One day. A long, long way away from now." Flack answered.

"Can we call her on the phone?" Mackenzie inquired hopefully.

"You can't even talk to her." Flack replied regretfully.

"Forever?" Daniel asked.

He nodded his head.

"Is mommy with God?" Mackenzie asked.

Flack fought back tears. Too choked up to answer.

"Its okay, daddy." Daniel slipped out of his covers and climbed up onto his father's lap and wrapped a tiny arm around Flack's neck. Kissed his father's cheek softly. "If mommy is with God than we should be happy, right?"

Flack nodded. Felt the tears spill down his cheeks.

"Don't cry, daddy." Daniel whispered, resting his head on his father's shoulder. "Mommy doesn't want you to be sad."

He wiped at his eyes and tucked Daniel back in bed and kissed his boys good night. Checked on Kieran and the baby. Both were fast asleep. Then he stood at the door to the master bedroom, forehead against the wood, hand on the door knob.

I can't life without her Gavin.

Yes. You can.

He turned the handle and pushed the door open and stepped slowly inside. He stood for a long time by the side of the bed. Taking in the sight of her night gown and the rumpled sheets. Her smell still lingering in the air. She was there. All around him. She'd always be there.

And that thought alone made him realize that Gavin was right. No matter how shattered his heart was, no matter how bad it hurt, he could live without her. He had to. For his kids. The kids that they had made together and she had carried inside of her. For himself. And most of all, for Samantha.

He picked up the night gown and held it to his face, breathing in that smell one last time. Then he went into the closet and tossed it into the laundry hamper. He stripped the sheets off the bed. Pillowcases and all. Threw them in the wash.

He couldn't bring himself to part with anything else. It was too soon. And he would never part with her ring. That would stay around his neck until he drew his last breath.

He settled down on his side on the bare mattress and gathered her pillow to his chest and clung tightly to it. Closed his eyes and thought of her.

It would be the best sleep he'd had in a long, long time.

Aphina

Madison Bellows

EddiesGirl

laplandgurl

Bluehaven 4220

Forest Angel

Glad you all enjoyed the ass whuppin' parts. Unfortunately, there's going to be some consequences.

And some fluff!