- 4 -

The lights seemed too bright as Sharon Raydor blinked against them, slowly coming to. Before she could release the groan that was building in her throat, a delightfully cool hand came to rest on her forehead, a thumb applying just the right amount of pressure to lessen her headache somewhat.

"How's the head, sweetheart?" For once she let him get away with this particular term of endearment and opened her eyes fully to look at him. Andy's hair was a lovely mess, silver strands sticking out at different angles. She smiled at the sight and reached out to run her hand down his arm.

"Not especially good," she admitted. "but a cup of coffee and an advil should be able to fix that."

He took his hand off her forehead, replacing it with his lips. "It is six thirty, by the way. We need to get a move on, soon."

Sharon groaned after all, reaching around his torso to pull him close and bury her face in his t-shirt. "I don't want to go to work," she whined. "If Ellie continues to narrate my life, I am going to throw her out of a window."

He patted her head gently. "No, no, honey. We both know you're too reasonable for that, don't we?"

Sharon made a noise of contempt and snuggled into him more. "The autopsy is first up this morning," she said. "Will you come with me? I don't think anyone else has the stomach for it after last night."

Andy chuckled. "But you do?"

"I am the boss," she crinkled her nose in disgust. "I guess I will have to pretend that I am not seriously hung-over."

He kissed her forehead. "Good luck with that."

Stretching her legs, Sharon was about to sit up when a sudden weight was on her ankles, her left foot suddenly in a death grip. She shrieked and bolted, spotting Rusty's cat at the foot of the bed.

"Who let Lord Voldemort in here?" she asked, looking at the cat that was apparently in a playful mood.

"He was howling in front of the door, begging to be let in. I couldn't sleep," Andy said defensively. "He loves you, Sharon."

Sharon sighed. "You know, I am actually more of a dog person."

"Maybe changing that was Chief Johnson's idea when she gave him to Rusty. She is sneaky like that."

Sharon hummed when the cat walked over to her and attempted to climb on her lap. "Don't do that, cat. Take him off me."

Andy reached towards the animal but found himself hissed at in a quite dangerous manner. Sharon rolled her eyes and took the now purring cat off herself, setting him on the floor next to the bed. "Come on, kitty. It's breakfast time."

"Kitty?" Andy asked. "If you had a glass of Merlot in your hand, I could confuse you with the chief."

Sharon shot him a dark glare. "I hope that you've never seen Chief Johnson in her panties or I swear to god, I'll kill you."

Andy certainly hadn't expected Sharon's sister and her intimidatingly tall sidekick to be able to see straight, much less wait for them at the morgue somewhat timid and all over Dr Morales respectively. Dott was in the doorway, breathing in an exaggerated manner and casting scared glimpses at the corpse from the corners of her eyes while Ellie was hovering over Dr Morales shoulder, purring flirty words, blissfully oblivious to the fact that the good pathologist was happily homosexual. Sharon rolled her eyes, having regained some color after a hearty breakfast and three cups of strong coffee. Maybe Rusty's relentless teasing about her sorry state had also helped her pull it together. At least she had been lucid enough to assign him an endless list of household chores for after school.

"Good morning, Dott." Sharon patted her sister's shoulder. "This is your first autopsy, I gather?"

Dott hid her face in Sharon's sleeve. "Ohhh, Sharon! How do you do it? Seriously? It is so... so... gross."

Andy couldn't hide his grin at the sight of a woman who didn't look so different from Sharon, yet behaved much like Rusty. Even inebriated his captain hadn't been close to this level of goofiness and he would have given anything to see her like that for once. But Sharon seemed to have other plans that obviously involved ridding the doctor of his clingy accessory and getting the autopsy underway.

"Good morning, Ellie," she stated, pulling her sister with her by her arm and disposing of her in front of the stainless steel table in the middle of the autopsy suite. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the ensuing shriek: "Dr Morales, how is your boyfriend?"

With a grateful nod, he took the hint. "Thank you for asking, Captain. He is just fine. Still tall and buff and very manly."

Ellie gave him a sad look and stepped aside. "My gaydar isn't working right," she said to Dott who replied in a low voice: "Mine, too. Andy, well, who knows, but the other one? Wouldn't have expected that."

"Andy? Of course! Look at those three piece suits and the ties. Straight men don't dress like that."

Andy scratched his head, unsure what to do with the information. Surely they couldn't be talking about him, so he watched Dr Morales make the incision while Dott continued to whimper quietly in the background, soothed by Ellie who didn't seem to mind the grizzly sight at all.

"Well," Dr Morales said. "It is not as straightforward as it looks."

Sharon lifted an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"Have a look at the tox results. Not you."

Ellie pouted and drew back.

"It's just numbers, anyway," she told Dott in a deliberately bored tone. Her friend, however, didn't seem to mind as she was leaning against the wall, ghostly pale and shrinking into the slightly too big autopsy scrubs. She looked a little lost and Andy wasn't sure how long she was going to hold up.

"This number is not just a little high," the pathologist explained to Sharon who was nodding with a look of concentration on her face, her glasses on the tip of her nose as she read. She noticed that Andy was watching her and looked up at him over the rims of her glasses, licking her lips. Her flirty antics didn't go unnoticed by Dr Morales who lowered the chart and rolled his eyes.

"Oh come on, you two! Can't you get it on already? It is getting ridiculous!"

Ellie frowned and then lifted both of her eyebrows while even Dott seemed to snap out of her near-dead state for a moment.

"Excuse me?" Sharon asked him, sounding every bit like the prim and proper Captain Andy had believed her to be before he had found her in his bed in a Dodgers t-shirt and nothing else one Saturday afternoon. If Morales was intimidated, he didn't show it but crossed his arms and rolled his eyes instead.

"You're not fooling anyone, you know. One day he's checking out your legs - rather impious in a morgue, Lieutenant -, next day you're standing too close together not to be-"

"Okay, that's enough!" Sharon interrupted.

"Yeah, that's enough!" Ellie said much to Andy's surprise. He had half-expected her to throw a few paragraphs of cheesy writing at them, not get the doctor to shut up. "You of all people should know how uncomfortable these untenable allegations are making Andy!"

Andy looked sideways at Sharon who was looking sideways at him that very moment.

"Shall we get on with the autopsy results?" Sharon tapped her foot rather noisily.

"Yes, please. I need to get out of here as soon as possible." Dott was white as a sheet.

"What I was saying," Morales cast Sharon a pitying look. "is that he has been shot indeed, but he was already dead when the bullet hit him. Somebody poisoned him."

"Poison. Now that is a lot sexier than being shot!" Ellie enthused, making Andy roll his eyes at the ceiling.

"So you had to cut him open to find out what was already in the blood results?" Dott lamented. "Sweet baby Jesus, we could have avoided this travesty?"

"Dott, performing an autopsy is standard procedure when someone died of unnatural causes," Sharon explained with forced patience, her tone speaking of a severe lack thereof. "So Dr Morales, what you are saying is that he was already dead when the bullet hit him?"

"Oh yes, that's what I'm saying," Morales replied with his usual snark and grabbed the bowl he had thrown all the organs in after dissecting them to empty it into the chest cavity. The noise could have been taken straight from a splatter movie and sent Dott over the edge. She made a run for the nearest sink and emptied the contents of her stomach into it, causing Morales to huff.

"Look, next time you bring your family and friends, tell them what to expect before they come in here and mess up my workspace," he told Sharon who clearly wasn't listening. She had that look in her eyes that always appeared there when she was on to something.

"Look, Doctor, what kind of poison was it? When would it have been administered?"

"It's Potassium Cyanide. If it is administered in large doses, it can kill you pretty quickly."

Ellie casually leaned against the wall, staying well clear of the body. "Well, Sharon. It dissolves pretty well in water. Not in alcohol, though. Such a shame."

Sharon lifted an eyebrow.

"Did you try to kill someone?" Morales asked. He obviously wouldn't have put it past Ellie to attempt such a thing.

"No, honey. I researched that one for literary purposes." She fluttered her lashes at him. "It contains prussic acid which smells slightly of almonds. Only twenty to fifty percent of all humanity can actually pick up that scent."

"Impressive," Andy said, earning a bright smile and a wink.

"Thank you, Dr Morales. I think we are on to something. Lieutenant." Sharon lead the way to the door, pausing there to turn around, awkwardly addressing her sister: "Honey, are you okay?"

Dott wiped her mouth with Ellie's handkerchief and waved at her sister, almost falling over in the wake of it. "I am okay. Don't worry about me. I am okay."

Ellie grabbed her arm to steady her.

"Don't worry, I have everything you need. Tranquilizers, stuff that helps with nausea, viagra - wait, what? Why do I carry that with me?" She was rummaging through her purse, pulling out medicine bottle after medicine bottle.

"You know that taking all of these can kill you?" Dr Morales looked mildly scandalized.

"Oh, love, I certainly won't take the little blue one," Ellie winked.

"No, I meant the others, too. You can't combine them. That's dangerous."

"Sir, Ellie could swallow a whole pharmacy. Her body is used to it," Dott told him.

Morales' eyes widened and so did Sharon's. Andy knew he had to distract her before she began to give them one of her lectures. She had read the complete package insert that came with his blood pressure medication out loud, commenting on various side effects. He also knew from Rusty that she resorted to medication only if it was absolutely necessary. Ellie's blatant abuse of prescription pills was to her what a red rug was to a bull.

"Sharon, can I talk to you for a moment about the case?" he asked her gallantly, pulling her out into the hallway and behind a locker where, for a lack of a better strategy, he gently pulled her glasses off her nose and put them in his breast pocket.

"What the-?" Sharon began but was soon silenced by his lips on hers. At first she seemed to be about to resist, but then he felt her relax and kiss him back rather feverishly. They came apart at the sound of Ellie's voice that carried through the door that was now half cracked open.

"- cannot take this from me. This is theft and I will talk to the police about it. SHARON!"

"You're putting yourself in danger!" Morales had completely lost his cool and was arguing his case to the sound of Dott's defeated moans as she tried to fight her nausea.

"How would you know? You're a doctor for the dead!" Ellie yelled.

"Indeed and some of them died because of abuse of medical-"

The arguing duo paused in front of Sharon and Andy and Morales raised his brows.

"Well, well," he said, eyeing their flushed faces and guilty expressions.

Fortunately, nothing more could be said on the topic because Dott staggered between them, grabbing hold of Ellie's arm. "I need some breakfast," she coughed. "And a breath mint."

"You certainly do," Ellie commented dryly then turned to the doctor. "Dr Mabuse, it was very inconvenient to make your acquaintance."

With that she marched off, dragging Dott behind her.

"You can ride with us! I have a lot of breath mints in the backseat of my car!" Andy yelled after Dott, receiving a rather strict look from Sharon.

"Dr Morales, thank you for your time. Please email me the autopsy report as soon as you can." She bowed her head and was about to turn away when she caught Morales' evil smirk. "What?" she snapped.

"I was right. You two are doing it."

Sharon gasped and her eyes narrowed. "Even if we were, that would be none of your business, Dr Morales," she admonished him in a snide voice.

Morales grinned. "Oh, my business are dead people, you mean? Because that's what you are going to be when Lieutenant Provenza finds out. Have a great day, Captain, Lieutenant." He nodded at them in turn and then walked back into his autopsy suite, whistling merrily.

A/N: I think I deserve reviews for the mere fact that I managed to sneak the sentence "Who let Lord Voldemort in here?" in a Major Crimes fic without turning it into a completely insane crossover. I'd be delighted. :-D