I'm sorry guys, I truly am, I wanted this up earlier but my sister surprised me with a visit home from college and honestly, writing was the last thing on my mind with her and work and such. So I apologize, but here you go. Once I figure out how to work the new writing program on my new laptop, I will start the next chapter. This is sort of the last case-oriented one. I wanted to get them into the grove of working together etc, but its going to start deviating from that more from now on. Enjoy! Please let me know what you think.

Helena sat across from Myka and watched as she became increasingly upset with the sheriff in front of them. Helena didn't blame her. If not for his disinterest in his case five years prior, they might not be currently investigating a murder right now. Helena stood up and followed Myka to her car as she seethed.

"I hate cops like him." She said after they had pulled out of the Jersey restaurant. "Guys like him, things only make sense if they fit in a box. They make them fit and murderers go free."

Helena paused a moment, then took a shot. "Is that what happened to your father?" She asked.

Myka looked taken aback. She glanced at Helena quickly then returned her eyes to the road. "My dad?" She asked, not willing to give up any information accidentally.

"I noticed your watch." Helena indicated towards it with her head. "It's your father's right? That's why you wear it?"

Myka looked shaken, and like she was about to very fiercely tell Helena to back off; but was saved by her phone ringing. Shifting her focus away from Helena, she answered the call. Helena kept her attention on the woman next to her. One of these days, she was going to figure out Detective Myka Bering. Helena had never met someone so...frustrating before. She was very apt at figuring people out. It was truly one of her better skills but Myka...Myka Bering was closed off. Unwilling to let anyone see anything she didn't allow them. It was driving Helena crazy.

"Well darling an affair certainly explains a lot." Helena thought out loud the ext day.

They had been going back and forth interviewing people in Sam and Melanie's lives. They had spoken to his best friend, her parents, old coworkers, and Melanie's old boyfriend. He had told them that Sam had been cheating on Melanie, possibly in reciprocation for her spending so much time with an old boyfriend, Helena thought.

Myka shot her a skeptical look. "Either Sam kills his wife alone, or he and his lover kill her." Helena explained.

"Well, then who kills Sam?" Myka asked.

"The lover." Helena answered after a moment's pause. "After Sam backs out after all she's done for him. She couldn't very well have gone to the police after he broke his promise. She would implicate herself."

Myka laughed. "How do you come up with these things Wells?"

"This one they came up with all on their own." Helena insisted.

"Wait, wouldn't his best friend know if he had been having an affair?" Myka asked.

"Yes indeed." Helena said with a grin. They drove back to meet up with Sam's old friend and Myka wasted no time telling him off.

"You lied to us." She accused as they walked over to him for the second time that day. "You never told us Sam had been having an affair."

"It was a long time ago, I didn't want to drag things up. Haven't his kids been through enough? They deserve to have this over with."

"What they deserve is to know what happened to their mother." Myka spat out. Helena watched her eyes flash dangerously. The man sighed and gave up the woman's name.

Myka did not like the woman sitting across from her. She was aware of how judgmental it was to dislike someone simply on the principal of knowing they cheated on their husband and helped tear a family apart. It was very judgmental. Myka knew nothing else about her, except she might have had motive to kill Melanie. Yet, she disliked her all the same and a part of her hated herself for it.

"Why did you end the affair?" She asked once they had begun to get Elizabeth to talk.

"I realized I was in love with my husband."

HG scoffed. "No one ends an affair because they realized they're still in love. They end it because they are scared. Afraid of getting caught, of taking it to the next level, ruining their life..." HG trailed off. "So, Elizabeth, what was it you were scared of?" She asked.

"Him." Elizabeth answered. Myka turned her attention away from HG and looked at Elizabeth in shock. She hadn't been expecting that one.

"Why?" She asked.

"He started to ask me what I would do if he wasn't with his wife. If she wasn't in the picture anymore."

"And when was that?"

"A few weeks before she disappeared." Elizabeth said. Myka's eyes widened in horror. "When I found out she was missing, I broke things off." Elizabeth insisted, as if it took any fault away from her. Myka bit back a sigh, apparently her initial instincts had been spot on. "He became angry!" Elizabeth continued. "It got so bad that I to transfer to another branch."

Myka was speechless. "You...I'm sorry you had to a..." She pressed her hands together tightly to stop herself from erupting and stood up. Her fingers pressed to her lips she took a calming breath and turned back around to Elizabeth. "Five years, Mrs Forte. Five whole years and you never came forward?"

"What's it matter if Sam killed Melanie?" She asked. "He's dead, they're both dead! What's it matter anymore?"

Myka sat back down in her chair and leaned herself as far away from the blonde woman as she could. She had never felt the urge to slap someone so strongly in her life.

They let Elizabeth go. As much as Myka would have loved to lock the woman up, she couldn't. Myka stayed at work long after everyone else had gone home for the night. Studying the white board and coming up with absolutely nothing by around 9pm, she grabbed her coat and left. Surprising herself, she went to find HG's loft, desperately needing to toss ideas off someone. Not surprisingly, her fancy apartment building came with a doorman who showed her to the correct elevator. Myka pressed the buzzer and stood awkwardly in front of the door. As it opened Myka found a laser gun pointed in her face. Attached to the gun was HG Wells, clad in a bright blue laser vest and goggles. "Hi?" Myka said slowly.

HG pushed the goggles up onto her head and looked at Myka, clearly shocked to see her. "Hello." She answered instantly warming up to Myka, but clearly still confused.

A small black haired child – also covered head to toe in laser gear – peaked out from behind HG. "Who is it?" She asked.

"Detective Bering." HG answered her daughter. Before either of them could say another thing, Martha, HG's mother came up on the other side of the author; her face covered in a green facial mask.

"Darling are we entertaining?" She asked, giving Myka a brilliant warm smile.

"Umm..." HG appeared to be momentarily lost for words. Myka sure as hell was.

"Mom! Manners!" Christine chided.

"Of course!" HG flashed Myka a brilliant smile and pulled her into the loft. "Come on in Detective. You remember my mother Martha and my daughter Christina." HG said, pointing to them both. Martha waved and Christina beamed up at her.

"Yes, hello."

The four of them stood awkwardly in silence for a moment. Myka alone in front of them, while the vests Christina and HG were wearing blinked on and off. "Can I get you a drink?" HG offered. Myka was having a hard time adjusting to this HG Wells, but she felt herself nod. Martha ushered Christina upstairs to bed after HG made a fuss about kissing her goodnight and then lead Myka into her study. Seeing a maternal HG in her own home was so incredibly different from the joking, cocky woman she dealt with at work.

As they walked into HG's study, the raven haired woman began stripping off her laser equipment. "Wow, I feel like...Alfred in the bat cave for the first time." Myka said as she looked around.

"Ah! A Batman fan, figures."

Myka turned back to HG. "What?"

"Similar origin stories, loss of a loved one leads to fighting crime." HG explained.

Myka smiled a little. "Yes, well you are the multimillionaire crime fighter." She threw back. She noticed a large screen up near the wall with the words 'Nikki Heat' plastered smack dab in the middle.

"That's where I outline my books." HG supplied.

"Looks a lot like our murder boards." Myka noted.

"Yes, except mine is fake." HG said. Myka sighed and began pacing, turning away from HG. "Is something wrong?" HG asked gently.

"I can't find it." Myka admitted painfully.

"Find what darling?"

"The answer."

"It was Sam" HG said. "Everything fits, it's a good ending."

Myka began to pace, unable to sit still or even just stand there. She was aware of HG's eyes on her from her seat but she couldn't be bothered to care. "Yeah but without proof its just a theory. And that family, those kids, they need more than just a theory. They need to know. I need to know." She admitted. She looked down and locked eyes with HG. She waited while HG sat there thoughtfully a minute before she spoke.

"Well...you have an ending, if you want the rest you need to work backwards. You need to finish the story." She stood up and pursed her lips. "You have your ending, your killer...you just have to put it all together with the facts at hand."

"The facts?"

HG nodded and ran her fingers through her dark locks. "Fact, they had two small children."

"So?" Myka asked in frustration.

HG wasn't phased by it at all. "Based on police statements they didn't have a babysitter. With him at work she would have had to have been with the kids the day she disappeared."

"But Sam said that she left later that night." Myka said dejectedly. She didn't see how this would get them anywhere. She had been over and over it all already.

"Which the doorman was never able to corroborate." HG reminded her.

Myka paused and thought out loud. "So if she was there and she never left then..."

HG finished Myka's sentence for her. "Then she was murdered in the apartment."

"Yeah." Myka said with a breath. Finally, it felt like they might getting somewhere. She just had no idea where that somewhere was.

"Another fact!" HG said beginning to get excited. "He lived in Manhattan."

This time, Myka finished HG's sentence. "And like most people in the city he didn't own a car." She added quickly.

"So what is a good husband to do living in Manhattan with his wife's body? He can't leave it in the apartment, he can't walk out in the lobby with it so the only question is..." HG leaned back against her couch.

"How did he get the body to the storage unit?" Myka finished for her, sitting down next to the author.

"He..." HG trailed off. "Well he could...no..." HG cocked her head to the side in thought.

Myka twirled her hair and bit down hard on her lip. "What if...nah..." She had no ideas whatsoever. She sighed in frustration.

HG turned to her, a new look of determination in her eyes. "Do you know what helps? When I'm trying to figure out how a character would do something, sometimes I will walk the crime scene. This one time I was trying to figure out how to throw someone off the Empire State Building and that movie Sleepless in Seattle had just come out; so many lonely women approached me after that, I got laid so..."

"Wells!" Myka interrupted. She really was not in the mood to hear about HG's impressive sex life.

HG sighed, but gave Myka a little smirk. "The point is, if you want to know exactly what the killer was thinking, go back to where he was and see what problems he had to face." HG looked eagerly at Myka. "Field trip?" She proposed. Myka had to admit, it was their only idea, and it was a pretty good one. She nodded and HG leapt of the couch and grabbed her coat, yelling out to her mother not to use the oven and to keep Christina alive until she returned.

"They told me he was shot in a mugging, now you're telling me he was shot here! In my apartment?" The current owner asked sleepily. Helena didn't look at him as she was glanced around for anything that could help. She didn't like the look of defeat in Myka's eyes while they were at her loft. The woman needed answers, and Helena was going to find them.

"Not him, his wife." She answered.

"His wife! What kind of family was this?"

Helena ignored him and turned to Myka. "Alright, so you and I are married..." She began to concoct the scenario that had played out five years before. Myka however, interrupted before she could continue.

"We are not married." She said forcefully.

Helena sighed. "Relax darling, it's just pretend."

"I don't wanna pretend." Myka insisted childishly.

Scared you'll like it?" Helena smirked.

Myka glared and advanced on Helena. "Okay, if we're married, I want a divorce."

"Are you two like this all the time?" The owner asked them.

"Yes." They answered simultaneously without taking their eyes off each other. Helena held Myka's angry gaze for a moment then sighed in defeat.

"Alright, we're not married, but they were; say the doorman's right, Melanie gets home about four o'clock." Helena began.

Myka bit her lower lip adorably in concentration. "She'd have to make dinner for the kids." She said. The two of them immediately moved into the kitchen, the current owner following behind.

"Then Sam comes home..."

"Bankers hours." Myka added. "Around 6 o'clock."

"The children have probably already eaten."

"So they're what, umm...watching tv in the bedroom?" Myka proposed.

"In my bedroom!?" The owner yelped.

"Hush darling, we're on a roll." Helena waved at him.

"They have a fight..." Myka continued.

"About the affair." Helena agreed, moving over near Myka.

"About Philadelphia."

"Things get heated..."

"And she turns her head..." Myka said, turning and looking around for a weapon.

"He whacks her with..." Helena glanced around searching for something Sam could have used to murder his wife. At the same time the two of them each held up a pot and a pan. "Fractures her skull and it's over." Helena said. Gently clanging her pan against the pot in Myka's hands.

"Um, except the kids are still in the bedroom." Myka said practically skipping with the excitement to the doorway, forgetting the pot was still in her hands. "He's got to figure out a way to get her out of the apartment without them noticing."

Helena came up behind her and looked around. "Hallway bathroom!" She pointed excitedly. The two of them grinned and ran, the owner following behind in a huff. "So he...places her in the bathtub, shuts the door and tells the children that she went to the store." Helena closed the door on the owners face and turned to Myka expectedly.

"Which according the the case file the doorman was never able to confirm." Myka said, playing with the pot in her hands as she thought. "So...no car, how does he get the body out of the apartment?"

The bathroom door opened and the owner stuck his face in. "Maybe he hailed a cab." He offered. Myka frowned at him.

"Yeah, maybe the cabbie and the doorman helped him stuff the body in the trunk." She said sarcastically. "How much would you tip for that these days?" She asked Helena jokingly.

"The doorman!" Helena yelled.

"HG, I'm joking."

"No, what if the body was already in the freezer when he took it out of the apartment?"

"Freezer?" The owner scoffed. "He'd have needed a truck."

Helena shared a look with Myka and the turned to the owner. "In my building if you have something delivered you have to sign for it."

"Yeah, here too, delivery that big you'd have to sign the ledger."

"The ledger?" Myka asked.

"Doorman's ledger, downstairs."

Myka looked to Helena and almost squeaked with excitement. She quickly shoved the man's pot into his hands and ran past him, Helena following close behind. The only signature from that day was for an older woman named Delores. Myka and Helena went to talk to her and were only able to get that she hadn't ordered the freezer and that by the time she had convinced the doorman of that, the man who had brought the freezer up to her apartment had been gone. Curiously, she told them that she had already told the other cop that, but she didn't remember his name. Myka thanked he for her time and Helena followed her downstairs and out the apartment building.

"I don't get it, if Detective Sloan had that woman's report why wouldn't he just follow up on it?" Helena asked as they walked.

"Cause he wasn't looking for the story, he'd already written it." Myka said with disgust. She clearly did not like the Detective. Helena couldn't really blame her.

The next day, Helena and Myka interviewed Sam's best friend again, realizing if he needed help moving something, that would be the person he would call. The man admitted it almost instantly, his five years worth of pent up guilt finally bubbling over. Sam had called him, distraught, saying Melanie had come at him and he had just snapped. They arranged for everything, sending the freezer to the old woman, getting it to the storage space, Sam sending his friend the cash and him paying it twice a year. After Sam had died, he didn't want to keep paying the money himself. Helena was surprised Myka had the restraint not to slap the man.

"People knew the truth all along they just chose not to come forward." Myka said shaking her head. Helena was still looking through the case files, something was still didn't set quite right with her. "I'm gonna go tell Melanie's parents what happened, do you want to come?" She asked as she put on her coat.

"The old woman told us she talked to an officer..." Helena said.

"Yeah, Sloan." Myka said with a shrug.

"Yes, only he didn't list her name in his report." Helena said, holding up the papers in her hands.

"He didn't think it was important, he wasn't looking for a murder." Myka said with distain.

"Right, so if you're not investigating a murder why would you talk to the neighbor about a freezer delivery?" Helena asked.

"Dammit, come on, we need to talk to her again." Myka said. The two of them drove back to the building in relative silence and Myka knocked on Delores' door. "I'm sorry to bother you again ma'am, I know it was five years ago that you talked to..."

"I didn't say it was five years ago." Delores interrupted.

"What?" Helena asked.

"It was only about a year ago. I remember thinking why was this cop asking me about a freezer I never ordered."

Myka glanced at Helena curiously. "Do you remember anything about the man that came to see you?" She asked.

"Uh, he was older."

"Was in in uniform?"

"No plain clothes like you, he had gray hair and he walked with a limp."

Helena turned to Myka. "Ben Davidson, Melanie's dad."

Helena and Myka sat quietly in her car and looked out at the Davidson's home. Myka hadn't said a word since they left Delores' apartment. "You could just leave it like this." Helena offered. "Sam's dead, the Captain's happy, the children look pretty happy."

Myka swallowed. Helena could tell the woman would rather be anywhere else in the world right now. "That's the difference between a novel and the real world Wells. A cop doesn't get to decide how a story ends." Helena watched as she took a deep breath and got out of the car. She walked up to the front door and knocked. Helena remained in the car and stayed quiet as they drove Mr Davidson back to the station to question him. Helena knew he wouldn't admit to it and she was right. He all but told them he killed him, but without a confession, and without the proper evidence, they would never convict him. Hearing his rage and sorrow over his only child caused Helena to call Christina as soon as they walked out of the room. Myka wandered off, probably back to her desk while Helena chatted with her daughter, promising strawberry pancakes the next morning. She headed back to Myka's desk and sat down next to her with a sigh.

"Christina missed me." She said. Myka nodded, but was clearly aware that it was the other way around.

"By the way, it was my mother, not my father." She said softly. Shocked, Helena leaned forward and listened. "We were supposed to go to dinner, my mom, my dad and I. She was gonna meet us at the restaurant but...she never showed. Two hours later we went home and there was a detective waiting for us." Myka hesitated, trying to think up the name. "Detective...Raglan. They found her body, she had been stabbed."

"A robbery?" Helena asked gently.

"Nope." Myka said, tears welling up a bit in her eyes. "She still had her money and purse and jewelry. And it wasn't a sexual assault either, they attributed it to gang violence...a random event." Myka looked up at Helena for the first time since she began speaking. "So just like in Melanie's case, they couldn't think outside the box so they just tried to package it up nicely. And the killer was never caught." Myka's voice broke a little and Helena wanted to reach over and hug her. She knew it wouldn't bode well if she tried, so she sat on her hands.

"Why do you wear the watch?" She asked.

"My dad took her death hard, he's...mostly sober now. It was five years, now it's one." She held up her watch. "So this is for the life that I saved..." she pulled a necklace out of her shirt with a ring on it and held it out. "And this is for the life that I lost." She twirled the ring in her fingers a moment, more tears in her eyes, then dropped it and tried to smile, but failed. "So, I guess your Nikki Heat has a backstory now Wells."

"Oh, I don't know...I did sort of enjoy the hooker by day, cop by night thing..." Helena said lightly. Just as she had hoped, a real smile slipped out onto Myka's features and she laughed a little through her tears. "But I suppose the heavy, emotional angle could work too."

Myka stood up and immediately stepped back away from Helena. "Well, don't bewilder your audiences with substance on my account Wells." She joked as she pulled on her coat. Helena knew she wasn't going to say much else tonight.

"Until tomorrow detective?" Helena said with a nod of her head.

"You can't just say night?"

Helena shrugged and remained in her seat. "I'm a writer, night is boring. Until tomorrow is more...hopeful."

Myka smiled into her hands. "Yeah well, I'm a cop, so...night." She looked back down at Helena and then walked off.

Helena sat there a few minutes quietly, then looked over and noticed Pete and Claudia gathering their things for the night. She stood up determinedly, walked over to Pete and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Might I ask a favor?" She whispered.

Pete led her down the corridor of the cold case files begrudgingly. With a sigh he pulled out a box and held out a file to Helena. As she was about to take it, he pulled it back. "She would kill me if she knew about this." He stated.

"I have no intentions whatsoever of telling her." Helena reminded him and reached out for the file.

Pete frowned and started to pass it over again. Again as she was about to take it, he pulled it back. Helena couldn't help but groan in frustration.

"She is my best friend HG. You better not make me regret this."

Helena nodded. "I assure you Mr Lattimer, I have no intentions of hurting her. I simply want to help." She said truthfully. Pete studied her. What he was looking for exactly, Helena wasn't sure. A reason to trust her she supposed. Whatever it was, he seemed to find it because he handed the file over, gave her a tight tap on the shoulder and walked away without a word.