Thoren - Hey! I'm glad you're enjoying! I hope this was soon enough - I think I'm back on track for my twice weekly updating. (:D)

Alana Xavier1 - Phone companies suck! lol. I certainly will try to keep up to standard!

RK9 - tough to read? Am I being mean, or sucky? Or both? Thanks for the cookie!

sparkyCSI - I think I'm up to date now - many thanks for being amazing!

demolished-soul - I'm having him back and forth for a while. I have plans for him. I'm not sure if he's like that, or I've created him like that. He was never on TV for long enough!

Trizzy - Now, you had taste. When I was fourteen, I was in love with a boy band called 911. And I've now just admitted that to the world... (:s) Aw, I hope your cat comes back!

meadow567 - happy to oblige!

miss wizard of oz - I have taken caffiene pills, with many frozen coffee things. (I'm allergic to caffiene though - so I had to stop doing it 'cos it made me ill). It had me bouncing off the ceilings! They will be cuddly soon!

Kippiej - aw, thank you!! I'm so happy to hear that! I'm really glad you like my baby, and I will certainly try - you just have to tell me if I start to fail!!

Aphina - well, you had a lot to do with that, so thank you! I have too much fun writing this... even if my muses plague me for days on end!

Spoliers, ok, well, we have some for 3x03; Love Run Cold.

And I love my beta - sparkyCSI! (:D)

What The Eyes Can't See

Chapter 131: But I know something is coming I don't know what it is

Taylor awoke the following morning to the sound of someone hammering at her door. Wondering if Flack was back, she pulled on her robe and padded to the door, stepping out at the same time as Marty. 'I'll get it,' she told him, walking to the door someone was still pounding on. She pulled it open.

'Good morning, Taylor,' Sasha sang at her.

Taylor sleepily wiped her eyes. 'Not to be rude, but why are you here?'

'I'm making it up to you for plastering your face on the sides of buses,' she exclaimed, bounding past her and into the kitchen. 'What are you and your boyfriend doing tomorrow night?' she asked as Marty walked into the kitchen.

Marty stopped and looked at her. 'Me?'

'Hi! I'm Sasha. I work in the PR department at the Daily. I recognise you from that award ceremony months ago. You must be Detective Flack.'

Marty shook his head. 'Dr Pino. Marty,' he corrected her, shaking her hand.

'Oh,' Sasha shrugged. 'I can do three tickets.'

'Tickets for what?' Taylor asked suspiciously.

'Launch party for Buri Vodka. It's a black and white affair.'

Taylor wrinkled her nose up. 'I've never heard of Buri Vodka.

Sasha rolled her eyes. 'That's why it's called a launch party.' Sasha looked back at Marty and then to Taylor. 'If he's not Flack, why are you both standing in your kitchen in your underwear?'

Taylor was still wearing a night gown under her open robe. 'He's my housemate, Sash. And speaking of underwear, I think it's time I got dressed,' she told her, ushering her out of the house.

'Tomorrow night. Eight o'clock,' Sasha yelled through the closed door.

Taylor turned to Marty. 'Party?'

Marty shrugged back at her. 'Why not?'

'So what do you have planned today?' she asked him, jumping up onto the side.

'Not much. See a few friends, take my car out and stretch her legs.'

'You know, you should drive your car to St. Louis,' Taylor mused. 'It seems a shame to keep her downstairs not being used when you're in another state for most of the time. Speaking of, why are you here? Not that I'm complaining.'

'I'm back for the 4th of July weekend,' Marty explained.

Taylor leapt at him, enveloping him in a big bear hug, which he returned. 'How long at you back for?'

'Until next Sunday. You have me around for a full ten days. Well, nine,' he quickly counted. Marty leant against the counter beside her. 'So what do you have planned for today?'

Taylor sighed. 'Well, we were supposed to be apartment hunting. But I don't know anymore.'

'You're leaving?'

Taylor froze, and swore loudly. 'I was going to tell you. Flack asked me to move in with him, well, we're getting a place together. Or at least I hope we still are.'

Marty nodded, sighing sadly. 'Well, I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise.'

'I'm sorry, Marty. I should have told you.'

Marty shrugged at her. 'When? I haven't seen you in weeks.'

'I guess,' Taylor relented. 'But I didn't want to tell you like this.'

'So make it up to me. You can buy the drinks all night tomorrow.'

'All night?' Taylor repeated.

Marty grinned. 'Yup. So when was the last time you went running?'

'Are you kidding? I haven't been running in ages. My running partner moved,' she told him, staring at him pointedly.

'Get your gear on,' Marty shrugged.

Taylor blinked. 'Just like that?'

'Unless you're too out of shape,' Marty taunted her.

Taylor arched her eyebrows. 'You are so on.'

A couple of hours later, the two had collapsed on the grass in the middle of Central Park.

'I think you've just killed me,' Taylor groaned, staring up at the clouds.

Marty rolled over and stared at her. 'You know, Hawkes goes running. Maybe you should go out with him.'

'I didn't know that,' Taylor shrugged. 'I'll ask him about it next time.'

'Yeah, he's looking for an apartment, too.'

'I didn't know that either,' Taylor glanced over at him. 'When did you become the oracle of all knowledge?'

'Called into the morgue yesterday, before I came back here. You go for few weeks and everything changes. Danny has a girlfriend, Peyton has a mystery man, Stella's seeing someone-'

Taylor's head shot up. 'No she's not.'

Marty smiled. 'Oh yes she is. Some cop in organized crime. Can't remember his name.'

'Ikaia?'

Marty nodded.

'You're wrong,' Taylor muttered in disbelief. 'They're just friends.'

'It got me too. I coulda sworn there was something going on between her and Mac.'

Taylor sank back into the grass. 'You know, I used to think that too. I don't know what happened there. Maybe I'll ask her about it.'

'And what's this I hear about twins? Because I'm certain I told you no kids whilst I was away.'

Taylor rolled her eyes. 'I'm not pregnant. Man, I am going to kill some people because of that.'

'Talking about death. Still getting visits?'

Taylor forced a smile. 'In the shape of aliens,' she told him dryly, before explaining the story.

Marty was still laughing when the got back to their apartment a while later.

'I'm glad someone finds that hilarious,' she muttered, heading to the bathroom.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing around the apartment, catching up on what had been missed over the handful of months that had passed. They were discussing Marty's "relationships" in St. Louis, when Taylor's phone rang. She hung up minutes later.

'I take it that's not good news?' Marty asked her, noting her glum expression.

'I left a voicemail with Don, asking him if he wanted to come to this thing tonight. But he has to work,' she explained.

'Not that I want to cause trouble or anything, but things didn't sound too brilliant between the two of you last night. So why did you invite him to the party.'

Taylor shrugged. 'I had some crazy idea he would talk to me. Tell me what's going on.'

'I don't think inviting him to a party is the way to go about it.'

'I know,' Taylor sighed. 'I figured neutral ground, away from work. Maybe that's what we need. I don't know. I don't know what to do.'

'You need to let him get his head out of his ass and apologise.'

'Helpful, Marty,' Taylor muttered.

'What? He was being a jerk last night. And if he was like that when he got here, I can only imagine what he was like before that to have you moping when I got there.'

'Marty,' Taylor sighed. 'It's more complicated than that. I told him one of his team was somewhat bent.'

'How on earth did you come to that conclusion?'

'I didn't. Maddy told me.'

'Maddy?' Marty frowned. 'She could share that much information with you?'

'No,' Taylor slumped against the couch. 'She got pulled away, replaced by Eirik, and I haven't seen or heard from her since. But I told Don this, and he told me I couldn't decipher the clues. Which normally I can't, but this was different, and I tried to tell him this.'

Marty looked at her. 'Firstly, who's Eirik?'

'From Organised Crime. He got killed. I thought he'd moved on, but apparently, he's Maddy's replacement. Though nice as he is, I hope he's only temporary.'

'Okay, so the reason Flack has his head up his ass is because you came to him with the truth about something?'

Taylor sighed. 'He thinks I went to Mac.'

'Did you?'

Taylor glared at him. 'Of course not,' she told him indignantly.

Marty held his hands up. 'I had to ask. But you have just proved my point. You need to let Flack come to you. Or at the very least, let him cool off.'

Taylor rolled her eyes. 'Gee, talking with you really helped matters.'

Marty shrugged. 'Maybe alcohol will help. That is, if you think you can trust yourself with me' he asked her with a grin.

She flung her cushion at him. 'I'm glad to see you haven't changed,' she muttered in disbelief. 'I'm going to preen.'

Marty glanced down at his watch. 'You only have a couple of hours. Are you sure that's going to be enough?'

He was rewarded with a smack upside the head for that comment as Taylor walked past him on the way to the bathroom.

---------------------------------

Taylor was just applying some perfume when there was a loud knock at her bedroom door. 'I knew you'd need longer than two hours,' Marty's voice drifted impatiently through the door.

Taylor rolled her eyes as she stepped back from the mirror to examine her appearance. She'd fallen in love with the dress months ago, bought it, and it had ended up in the back of her closet. She had a slight habit of buying beautiful (and frankly, over-priced) dresses and them finding their way to the back of the closet to never be worn. This was one of them. It was too smart to wear to an average party.

It was a black satin number. A sweetheart, strapless, backless number with beadwork at the neckline and hip. Its skirt was long and floor length, but because it wrapped around, left an open slit at the front and a slight trail at the back.

She stared at her hair, wondering if she should have left it down, rather than in the French knot she had opted for.

'Taylor!' Marty shouted through the door.

Guess it's up. She yanked the door open. 'What?' she stopped suddenly when she caught Marty's appearance. He was in a black suit with a black shirt, tie-less and his top button open. But he looked good. 'You don't scrub up badly.'

'I could say the same about you.'

-------------------------------

'Oh my God,' Taylor muttered as the pair eventually walked into the launch party. Someone had certainly pushed the boat out on this one. It was like they had walked into a bar made of ice. Taylor glanced up at the icicles hanging from the ceiling. They practically had.

She stopped suddenly. 'Marty, they have penguins,' she gushed excitedly. Maybe a party was for the best – nothing homicide related.

Marty surveyed the area. 'They have women in bikinis serving drinks,' he pointed out. One headed in their direction carrying a giant icicle filled with bright blue liquid.

'It's a promotional bottle,' the scantily clad waitress told them. 'It's ice tonight, but when they hit the stands, they'll be glass,' she informed them as she filled their glasses.

'Looks like I don't have to worry about buying you drinks all night,' Taylor grinned.

Marty rolled his eye. "Don't think you've gotten out of that one that easily."

A couple of hours later, and Taylor was ready to forgive Sasha completely for the publicity stunt. She and Marty were pleasantly drunk, and even though she wished Flack was there too, she was having a ball.

'Dance?' Marty asked her as a Justin Timberlake's SexyBack came on.

Taylor nodded and allowed Marty to lead her to the dance floor where she found herself lost in the beat. Until a scream caused the music to come to a sudden halt.

Taylor froze. 'You've got to be kidding me,' she muttered under her breath as Marty sobered up instantly and led her to the source of the scream.

In the centre of the room was a raised stage – the main feature being raised from below. In this instance, the main feature was the promotional face of Buri Vodka… and in this case, she appeared to be dead.

Marty pulled her through the horrified crowds to the body, feeling for a pulse around the frantic boyfriend.

At the slight shake of his head, Taylor pulled her phone out and dialled.