A/N: I know this story is quite different from my other stories, and despite the fact that I still love writing it, I don't know if it's any good at all. Thank you to all reviewers – it really means a lot to me that you like it so far, but if all of this gets too boring and you stop reading, it's okay.

Two years prior

"Well…" Jamie looked around the destroyed shop, "it seems to have been a nice place before…" He broke off in embarrassment.
Beth shrugged. "It was… and will be again, hopefully. This is a family enterprise since 1934." She followed Jamie's glance and her face turned grim. "This wasn't the first robbery and it won't be the last… I guess?"
Renzulli raised his eyebrows. "And what, you're waiting for the next so you can fight against three men with guns and get killed? Do you think that's gonna help anybody? Like, for example, your brother?"

Beth closed her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" The sergeant stepped closer to the distraught girl, his tone softened again. "Being alive? You were lucky today, and we were, too, cause I can tell you it's not fun coming to a place in order to help and then your only job is waiting for the examiner to identify the corpses." Grumbling, he walked out of the shattered room.
Jamie swallowed awkwardly. "I'm sorry for my partner, miss, he's just…"
"Right?" Beth opened her eyes again and tiredly leant against the counter. "I'm… I know you see a lot worse than this, and I know I should be lucky, I mean, I am, it's just…" She shook her head. "Never mind. Thanks for… coming that quick."
"We're not really helpful right now, are we?" Jamie offered, taking a few steps towards the young woman just as Renzulli had done. "I don't know where the detectives are, they should be… maybe they…"
"Have something better to do?"
"No. No, they're on their way. There is nothing more important than the person needing you right now." He put his hand over Beth's gently. "You did the right thing. You're alive. I understand you feel guilty right now, but there is nothing you could have done differently."
"Says the guy who spends his life bringing himself in danger" she commented bittersweetly, "but thanks. I just wish I could be a little bit braver. You should think it lies in our family."
"Because of your brother?"
"And my father, and my uncle and my grandfather and my mother's father… yeah."
Jamie nodded. "I see." Beth's glance drifted down and into the emptiness.
"And no cops?" He smiled as she looked up again and softly smiled back. "No."
"Well…" a firefighter girl to the core, and still she was acknowledging a cop's putting himself in line. "You chose your own way. What's wrong with that?"
Beth laughed. "Of course, cause hair stylist is every little girl's dream. Right after a pony and a prince." She sighed. "What about you? Many cops in your family?"
"My father, my grandfather, my brother Danny and… my brother Joe was, too."
Her hand found his now and squeezed it gently. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay, I guess… it has to, after all. It's been almost six years now."
"Doesn't mean a thing" Beth murmured, "Andy and I lost our oldest brother fifteen years ago and it still hurts like crazy whenever I… well" she exhaled shivering, shifting her weight against the counter. "Bad topic, I guess. Sorry – again and for everything else stupid I might say." She closed her eyes, and Jamie, fearing she would collapse, reached for her arms. "Beth!"
"I'm okay." He felt her tense in his arms but didn't let go yet. "You don't look like it."
"Charming" she opened her eyes again, and the fire in them belied her trembling body.

It was strangely dark, not so bright that it would blind him, but warm and strong and it seemed to blaze over the girl's entire face, lightening up every inch of her skin in a soft glow. A small patch of scars, burn marks, sat around her left eye, only visible now that he was closer to her, a reminder of how dangerous in all its beauty fire always was.

Jamie couldn't say after how many seconds, minutes or hours he realized that he was staring like a teenager at a crime victim. He backed away quickly, his hands however still resting on Beth's arms, though he would rather not explain why. She didn't seem to mind it anymore, though, and as he after a moment of embarrassment dared to look at her again, he found her smiling. "Sure I don't look okay?"
Jamie dropped his eyes again. "I… well, I never said you weren't beautiful. I just said…"

Detective Ryan saved him too late to keep professional, he had to admit afterwards. What he had said might go on as bantering or even just plain politeness, but he mustn't have looked at her like that. Beautiful and wild and proud as she undoubtedly was, first of all she was a citizen needing a cop. Not another knight in macho-armor as her brother seemed to be.