Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or ideas from The Killing. It's all just for fun.

Spoilers: Season 3, episode 5

Linden and Holder are outside the door of the apartment where the Sewards once lived, where Linden and Skinner's case had begun a few years back. They've just learned from Adrian Seward's adoptive parents that Adrian had had a habit of sleeping in a closet when he'd come to live with them after his mother's death, and Linden needs to see the whether the position of any of the closets in that old apartment would have given him a view of the killer on the night his mother was murdered. It's a long shot, but it's more solid than anything else they have right now.

So now they're in the dim, deserted hallway outside the apartment that had been the Sewards,' and Linden's picking the lock without a second thought. After all, it's the only way in, and when it comes to solving a case, there isn't much Linden wouldn't do, not many rules she wouldn't break. As for Holder, well, he's not exactly stopping her from breaking into the apartment himself. Holder is standing beside her, leaning his back against the wall and clutching the old case file to his chest.

"Just wanna point out, this is a Class-A Felony," he says nonchalantly. Linden ignores him, intently working to get the door open before someone tries to stop them. He cringes a little as she works less than gently on the lock with his knife. "Easy, yo. That knife cost me a 50-spot."

"It's defective," she says flatly as she works. Anyone else might have been offended by that comment, both the words and the harsh way that she said it.

Luckily, Holder's used to Linden and neither her comment nor her tone phases him. Is his knife defective? Who the hell knows? Linden might just be mad that she can't get the door open. Holder's not the type to let that kind of thing get under his skin. He's already moved on to thinking about the case. "Yeah, so I was thinkin, I mean, it's the same with all these girls. Like, either they're not seeing or they're not saying."

"So?" she asks without looking up from her work. What the hell is he talking about, anyway?

Holder stares down the dark hallway in front of him, deep in thought. "So maybe we're lookin at this whole thing inside-out. It's not about what these girls see. It's about what he sees. What's he lookin for? How does he choose?" He turns and looks back at Linden, then continues. "See, we're been going at it all Copernicus, when we need to be Gallileo on this bitch, you feel me?"

Linden stops working and looks at him. What the hell is he talking about now? she thinks to herself. That was completely random, even for Holder.

"See, Copernicus, he was, you know, like lookin at the sun doin its thing from this middle place, like he was the middle. But then Gallileo was all like, 'Nah, man, that's conceited.' And then Copernicus started frontin', like…"

He's not imagining it, Linden's definitely smirking at him now. No, it's more than a smirk. I know about this stuff, he thinks defensively.

She's pretty sure she's never heard Holder say anything quite this crazy, and that's really saying something.

"What's wrong with your face, Linden? Don't stroke out on me. You know hire-backs ain't on the health plan." She just can't appreciate my wisdom, he thinks to himself huffily.

She's suppressing a laugh as she looks back down at the doorknob. Holder really doesn't make any sense sometimes. At that moment, Linden finally gets the door open.

"There we go," Holder declares, peering past her into the apartment, forgetting that he was pretending to be made at her.

The door creaks eerily as Linden slowly pushes it open. She looks inside the apartment with trepidation. She doesn't have good memories of this place, or anything related to this case, to put it mildly.

Linden

I'm just going to go in and look objectively at the layout. I'm not going to remember. I'm not going to think about all the rest of it. The drawing. The trees. The hospital. The…

I'm not going to think about anything except whether there's a view of the door from one of the closets. That's all we're here for, and it's the only way to know. This is our only lead right now, and I'll be damned if I'm going to ignore it because I'm uncomfortable. Which I'm not. I'm completely fine.

Because I'm not going to remember.

Holder

Kinda wondering how Linden is holding up… she's acting all cool about coming back here, insisting on it, even, and even picking the lock herself, but it can't be the best place in the world for her to be… I mean, she don't talk too much about that case, but clearly it's a big deal. Couse, the fact that she don't like talkin about it doesn't mean much with Linden, cause she's not exactly talkative unless she actually wants to talk about something. Which is mostly work. But even then, no guarantees.

I dunno for sure, but I assume that if it's something important she'll tell me about it – or, I'll get her to tell me about it… eventually.

…

Linden pushed the front door of the station open with such force that it nearly collided with Holder, who was standing just outside it. She looked up at him, just as startled as he was, if not more so. "Sorry," she mumbled. Then, realizing that it was slightly odd that he was just standing by the door, she asked in her normal no-nonsense tone, "What're you doing here?" Anyone else would probably have taken her tone to be unfriendly.

"Waitin for you," he said simply. When she looked at him in confusion, he continued, "You were in Skinner's office, and he seemed pretty pissed off. I know how he gets under your skin, so I figured you'd be flyin outta there, slammin doors, in five minutes or less," Holder responded self-assuredly with an easy smile. He consulted his watch, then looked up with a grin. "I was pretty much right on. Damn, I'm good!"

He was grinning that little boy grin again, the one that made it so hard to stay mad at him. Linden rolled her eyes, suppressing a smile. "Shut up, Holder," she replied in pretend annoyance. She knew he was right, and she was even impressed that he'd thought it through that far. Why did he have to understand her so well? It really freaked her out that anyone did, and yet… there was also something comforting about it… in an uncomfortable way, if that made any sense – which Linden was pretty sure that it didn't.

Linden appeared to be lost in thought, which was usually a dangerous thing when she was in this mood. Holder watched her carefully for a minute, then decided it was time to pull her back to Earth. "So, what's your plan, Linden? I know you already got a plan." Linden always had a plan, even when it wasn't a good plan.

"I'm going back the prison to see Ray Seward," Linden said matter-of-factly. Holder raises an eyebrow at her, not having needed to have been in the room with Skinner just minutes before to know how he'd feel about that. Skinner seemed to think that everything they were doing that didn't involve looking for Joe Mills was a complete waste of time, and had told them so on multiple occasions. Unfortunately for Skinner, Linden and Holder weren't much for following rules or directives.

"Yeah, I know, Skinner's gonna be pissed," Linden said in response to the look on Holder's face. "Whatever, I don't care what he thinks. The cases are connected, even if he refuses to see it. There's no doubt about it if you actually look at the evidence." Holder nodded, not disagreeing with her. "I just need to keep digging. I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

"We are," he corrected her. "You want me to ride along with you?" he offered. He agreed that there was probably a connection there, and he knew that it wasn't just the Seward apartment, but the whole Seward case was more than just a sensitive topic for Linden. However, she shook her head stubbornly. He recognized the look on her face, and he knew without a doubt that it wasn't going to do him any good to argue with her as long as he saw that look. "Alright, well, call me if you need me."

She didn't quite smile, but the hard look on her face looked slightly less hard. "Yeah," she muttered, already walking to her car. Holder shook his head at her as he turned around. There were lots of times when that's all he could do when it came to Linden. He headed off in the other direction to hit the streets yet again, in search of a lead that would help them get to the bottom of their case. Their case, Linden and Holder's.