Chapter 5

"Marigolds?" Jamie said with a questioning look directed towards Eddie.

"Yeah, a whole bouquet of them." Eddie responded looking over the flowers that she had been given only one hour ago. They had reached her apartment about twenty minutes ago and Eddie explained the events that had gone down in Renzulli's office.

"But why marigolds?" Jamie studied the flowers for the umpteenth time. "They look a bit like… you know…"

"Like something you'd find at a funeral." Eddie finished. "Yeah, I know, that's because they're supposed to be a sign of pain and grief. That can't be a coincidence, can it?"

"What you think that Mack sent these to you on purpose? As a warning?" Jamie questioned. He began to worry that Eddie could be in real danger from this guy, it was one thing to be calling someone twenty times a day, but to send them weird flowers was a whole different ball park.

"Whoa, hold up. Who said anything about Mack being a part of this?" Eddie stopped his train of thought, she had said nothing about Mack being responsible, in fact he hadn't even crossed her mind on the list of suspects that she had developing in her mind.

"What are you talking about? Why wouldn't he do this; I mean he clearly want your attention and this is the best way to do it." He was horrified that she would still think so highly of him when Mack was the one who was clearly behind this.

"That's an assumption." Eddie countered, her voice rising.

"No, it's not. It's looking at the evidence and coming to a reasonable conclusion; which is, at the moment, what you're not doing." Jamie reasoned. He was about to continue, but stopped himself when he saw the anger in Eddie's eyes and expression. This was what he was trying to avoid, he knew that they needed to work together, as a team and this wasn't the way to achieve that.

"Look I'm sorry. I'm just trying to help."

Eddie softened her expression, "I know you are."

"So, did this person leave a note or anything?" Jamie said trying to change the subject.

Eddie looked inside the bouquet and found a small white card inside, she read it and frowned.

"What does it say?"

"Roses are red, Violets are blue. I know I love you and I hope that soon you'll learn to love me too." Eddie read, cringing as she read it. "It's really…"

"Cheesy." Jamie said cutting her off and soon after an involuntary shiver passed through his body.

"I was going to say creepy, but yeah that too."

"So, maybe I'm right. Maybe Mack wants more and doesn't like being ignored." Jamie couldn't help but put it out there again. His gut was telling him that this guy was responsible and he just couldn't let that feeling go. In fact, the sense of dread that he currently felt, had been there since the day that they had met Mack and hadn't gone away.

"Again, with this." Eddie rolled her eyes. "You have no evidence. Anyone could have done this; including that creepy, stupid, drunk guy that we collared last week who said I was as hot as the sun."

"As if it was him, he didn't even remember the date let alone your name." Jamie started to get annoyed.

"Ok fine, but Mack is just some confused guy who's grieving for his brother and he's clearly taking it hard."

"I understand that, but that's not a good enough excuse to rule him out Eddie. He called you forty times this week alone!"

"I'm not denying that. But you can't say that you didn't do stupid things when you were grieving for Joe." Eddie pointed out.

"This isn't some stupid mistake, like drinking too much on one night when you have work the next morning, Eddie. This is bordering on harassment!" Jamie explained, his temper rising.

"Of course, I knew you wouldn't understand." Eddie muttered under her breath with contempt lacing her voice.

"What wouldn't I understand?" Jamie said clearly aggravated now. "What wouldn't I understand Eddie?" He repeated getting more annoyed by the minute.

"Not all of us were perfect like you. Some of us made mistakes." Eddie said flatly. When Jamie was silent, she continued. "Not all of us had the perfect family to make sure we continued on with our perfect lives. Some of us had to deal with it by ourselves."

"Is that what you think it was like?" Jamie asked. "It wasn't all happy families, we had our problems and our struggles."

"Yes, I'll give you that. But you never felt what it was like to be truly alone in the world did you?" Eddie said putting the final nail in the coffin. She knew that was a low blow. Everyone says that you know someone has lost an argument when they start personally attacking their opponent instead of actually addressing the issue. Well, Eddie knew she had crossed that line, hell, she had already sprinted past it.

"You know what." Jamie said quietly, he was truly saddened and offended by what she had said. However, he didn't want to show his emotions, so he picked up his coat and continued. "Do whatever you want, screw yourself over. That's fine with me. Just don't come crying to me for help when it all goes wrong." And with that he left and slammed the door behind him.

Eddie just watched him as he left, immediately regretting what she had said to him. It was just… she was so angry at him for making assumptions and always thinking that he was right and had all the best answers. In nearly four years of their partnership she had learnt that he had great instincts and that he was crazy smart, usually meaning that he was correct about pretty much everything. But it was so frustrating, especially when her ideas and thoughts were sometimes disregarded because Jamie's were automatically better. Like that time, she had disregarded that 10-13 call because she was following Detective Rivera's orders, but Jamie who was usually as by- the-book as they come, decided that the right thing to do was to leave her in the car and run two blocks to the 10-13, which turned out to be unfounded. He had a go at her afterwards for taking the keys out of the car even though she had covered for him with Rivera. What Jamie had done was right and she was wrong, as always. Admittedly she had seen his side and could see why he had taken that stance because of what he'd been through with his former partner and his late brother, Joe; but he hadn't even explained that to her. But she had made her decision and he had made his, it was a personal judgement call. Every partnership had its flaws and this was theirs.

The next day, when she apologised (it always seemed to be her that had to) she was left with an unsettling feeling that everything between them wasn't as good as before; but she pushed that feeling down and continued on in the hope that all would be forgotten.

But now it was back. And stronger than ever.

This time she was sure that she was in the wrong. But she was only human. Admittedly, she wasn't perfect and she made mistakes. She was just worried that this mistake might have cost her the best friend she'd ever had.

A/N: Hope you're liking this story, I'm definitely enjoying writing it. With regards to the last part of the chapter, Eddie's thoughts partly reflect mine on the subject, especially with that episode (6x11 – Back in the day, I think it was). Obviously, no one's perfect and Jamko's partnership is amazing, however it does have its flaws and I think one of them is largely highlighted in the episode. I think that Jamie does come off as being always the one in the right, and as much as he is my favourite Reagan, that kind of bothers me because I think that the scale is always tipped in favour of him. Another thing that I did also notice was the fact that Eddie is very often the one that has to apologise to Jamie one thing that I noted in 'Rush to Judgement' (6x06) was that even though Jamie kind of insulted her by saying that she brought up that domestic dispute case when she actually didn't. Also, his responses to her apologies sometimes don't seem very genuine and they are at times quite looked over. That was just my view, in case you were wondering why I brought that up ;)

If you have another view I would be glad to hear it in the comments, I would love to hear another point of view. Personally, I think that all the characters in BB are flawed, but that's what I think makes them so lovable and that's why it's my favourite show.

Lastly (but certainly not least) a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has read the story and reviewed it so far. Your encouragement had spurred me on to keep writing this so thank you guys. And as always don't forget to review! J