A/N: I don't know if there's anyone around to read this anymore since it's been quite some time since this show finished, but I thought I'd post it anyway. I rewatched Cold Case this spring, and it reminded me of how much I loved the Scotty/Lilly dynamic back when the show was first on; I remember I was very much hoping they'd end up together, but unfortunately as we know, it didn't happen. So what's one to do? Well, write their own alternative ending of course:)

This story takes place during and after the series finale "Shattered", and the first chapters use actual lines from that episode that I have added my own stuff to. Lyrics in the beginning and end of this chapter are from Precious by Depeche Mode, the song which also inspired the title for the story.

Overall story rating: M (adult stuff and some swearing)

Disclaimer: Cold Case and its characters don't belong to me, I'm just borrowing them a little bit.


Precious and fragile things
Need special handling
My God what have we done to you?
We always tried to share
The tenderest of care
Now look what we have put you through

Well, this was familiar. Way too goddamn familiar.

Scotty Valens couldn't help swallowing nervously, a muscle in his cheek twitching out of what was probably sheer panic as he awaited for the inevitable explosion to hit him. Any second now…

"My sister, hooked on hillbilly heroin and you didn't tell me?!"

Here we go.

The orange pill bottle hit his thigh, bouncing into the space between them and he startled, throwing a quick glance towards the blonde woman next to him; her blue eyes portrayed rage, disappointment, betrayal, and suddenly he was taken straight back to the last time she had looked at him like that. Five and a half years ago, at the lobby of the Philadelphia Police Department, over the exact same subject.

Christina.

"What the hell was I supposed to say, Lil? After what happened last time?" Scotty figured that perhaps attacking her straight back would be the best defense, her anger touching a similar emotion budding inside him, growing and inserting itself into his body; it was painful, it was goddamn awful because this wasn't them, they were better than this. And yet, every time the subject came up, they were reduced to helpless fighting, mutual insults and such highly boiling emotions that he was surprised they had survived without actual physical injuries. At least so far.

Lilly Rush glared at him, her gaze so freezing cold that he could have sworn the temperature inside the car dropped a few degrees instantly; then she undid her seat belt, got out of the car with what sounded like a barely concealed growl. He didn't hesitate, following suit, not even sure why; they were in a precarious situation as it was, and maybe it would have made all kinds of sense to let her have a moment alone, allow her a bit of time to seethe things out of her system. Despite that, he knew he couldn't do anything of the sort; she was his partner no matter what, and after everything that had already happened today, Scotty instinctively knew his place was still right by her side.

"Hey! Wait, wait, wait. What are you doin'? What are you doin'?" He jumped straight in front of her, blocking her. "Hey."

Hey. Their code word, their shared signal, the three letters that carried so much weight and so much meaning. Just say hey, and I'll be there.

It also carried so much pain.

"You lied to my face," she told him, the same words as last time, her voice dripping with the same venom and ice, her eyes huge, wide and full of anguish. Again, her anger attached itself into a matching tendril inside him, tugging at it, teasing, slowly stoking the fire and temper that were always close to the surface in him. Come play, come play

"See, I knew you'd react this way. Why do you think she came to me first, Lil?" Frustration flared in him, the childish need to piss her off even more than he already was managing to.

"Of course." Her voice cracked, briefly sounding like it was full of tears, her eyes darkening with a steely fury. "Why wouldn't she?"

Mission accomplished.

"Says a lot about your relationship, don't it?" he tossed into her face, noticing his little barb hitting its target from the tiniest of flinches that crossed her features. "Do you think I wanna get put in the middle of this all over again?"

At least now he was being honest; if there was a place he could imagine being more terrible than the fiery pits of hell itself, it was the ice block between the Rush sisters. And whether Scotty Valens wanted it or not, he had again ended up right into that ice, firmly stuck, trying desperately to escape but frozen solid into the eternal war zone. One blonde on each side; in any other situation, that probably would have seemed like an absolute dream come true, but now, not so much.

"Didn't stop you before," Lilly hissed, her face even paler than it normally was. "Just another piece to you, right, Scotty?"

She brushed past him, taking a few determined steps away and by now he was truly angry, everything on free flow. Oh hell no. And then the ever-searching, probing fingers of fury inside him tapped into something he had buried as deep as possible, a fiery chasm of not anger but genuine fear instead, making him spill out the one terrifying prospect he had tried to keep stamped down, to avoid thinking about.

"You know, why don't you take your ass back up to the Feds an' take that big job?"

The words squeezed at his heart mercilessly, tearing it into a big, bleeding lump, a familiar wave of hopelessness and sadness overcoming him. Ever since he had heard of Lilly's FBI job offer, that feeling had been his constant companion, the sheer terror that she would leave, that he would no longer see her nearly every day. That he would no longer be greeted each morning by the incredible sky blue eyes and the sparkling, thousand-watt smile that always warmed him up, made him feel like everything was all right in the world and like he was at home, right where he was supposed to be, no matter what horrors they were all dealing with that day.

"You can forget about us, just like you forgot about your sister." He could feel his eyes burn, was quite sure they were full of tears, completely sure that Lilly, facing him again, was able to read every single emotion that was coursing through him right now.

Like you forgot about your sister. Like you will forget about me.

"What?" she managed to get out, sounding furious, astounded and sad at the same time. "I… I don't…"

He stared at her, hoping when there probably wasn't much to hope for, silently pleading her to say the words. I'm not taking the job. I'm staying right here. Right here with you. She said nothing more, however, her lips parting slightly, then pressing together again and she looked away, a brief frown crossing her brow, like she had either forgotten what they had been fighting about or was trying to come up with the next vicious arrow to hit him with.

Scotty took a moment to study her, like he often did – not often, he was forced to mentally correct himself, not often but almost always. He was always watching her, had been for years, reading things from her face and from her body, to attune himself to her moods and to keep tabs on what was going on with her and how she was doing. Asking her was useless since she was always just fine, so during the course of their long, sometimes rocky and patchy but still beautiful partnership, he had developed his own Lilly Rush guidebook, constantly updating and sorting it, referring to it on a daily basis. Somehow he had obviously managed to do all of his studying without getting caught by her, since he was still breathing and had all of his limbs intact; the thought that she might soon not be there anymore to provide new material for him was just indescribably painful. A study of one, The Study of Lil… maybe one day he could write that into a memoir or something.

God, she was gorgeous.

He startled a little, not really sure where that had suddenly come from, though it certainly wasn't the first time; she had fascinated him from day one, not only because of her impressive career – the first female detective in Philadelphia Homicide after all – but because of all of her layers, her nuances, just because of who she was as a person. He was painfully aware of the fact that what and who she was could be, in large part, connected to her terrible upbringing and all the challenges she had faced in life from very early on, along with everything that had happened over the past seven years since he had first laid eyes on her in the PPD Central Division's observation room, but as much as he hoped she wouldn't have had to go through all that, there was no denying it had made her into a book he would never get tired of reading.

This is Detective Rush. Her partner transferred out; you'll be working with her.

John Stillman's words from that first day crossed his mind briefly, followed by Nick Vera's quick wish of good luck; back then he hadn't really understood the other detective's offhanded comment, not sure why he would need that. Everything had come clear very quickly, however, when the Ice Queen of Homicide had chewed him through, spat him out and reduced him into something very small without even saying much anything, then repeated the process a couple of times, all within the first few hours of their partnership. Scotty had gone home that evening feeling strangely like he suspected clothes felt after a brisk five-minute spin cycle in the washing machine; the next morning he had gotten up and done it all over again, and little by little he had found his footing with Lilly, with Homicide, with cold cases. And made his first tentative scribbles into The Study of Lil, then more and more, each day, with each case they worked, solved, all the shit they dealt with, both professionally and personally.

She was watching him with an odd expression on her face and he quickly forced himself back into the present moment, hoping he hadn't been just staring at her for very long because it certainly felt like that. There were people walking around them but no one was paying any special attention, or looking at him like he was a weird zoo animal, so perhaps their interaction still looked relatively normal. He sighed a little, managed a tiny shrug, focusing again on the current crisis.

"I figured you were her next stop anyway. Was I right?"

Lilly's eyes didn't waver from his, her lips slightly parted again, some wayward strands of blonde hair shining golden as the afternoon sun illuminated them. The worst rage had bled out from her expression, although her eyes still betrayed the turmoil that was clearly taking place inside her; Scotty felt suddenly exhausted to the core, like always when things were bad between them. The first time they had gone into battle over Christina Rush, he had blamed the strange non-stop lethargy fully on grief, on trying to recover from his long-time girlfriend Elisa's suicide and its stormy aftermath, but the actual truth was something he had only been brave enough to admit to himself a little while ago. Lilly being angry at him was like having the only energy source removed from his life; her smile charged him like a solar plant and without it he was a zombie, walking around in a daze and just about managing to get through the mandatory tasks of each day.

He really did not want to even think about what life would be like without her by his side.

She moved a little, still watching him with her brow slightly furrowed and Scotty had to look away from her inquisitive face, briefly moving his eyes over her tall, slender body instead. He wasn't quite sure when The Study of Lil had started to get entries related to the way she looked; after he had recovered from the shock of getting partnered with a girl, he had of course noticed her blonde hair and blue eyes, he would have been blind not to, but back then it had been all about brunettes for him, one brunette in particular, the girl he'd had a very long, on-off relationship with. Perhaps it had been the day when Lilly suddenly showed up at work with her hair down for the first time, the golden waterfall flowing down her back, or perhaps it was when that ponytail had first made an appearance. Who the heck would have thought a simple ponytail with side-swept bangs would be so goddamn sexy? He was quite sure it had happened a lot earlier, however, and had absolutely nothing to do with hairstyles.

Because whether he wanted to admit it or not, Lilly Rush was like a magnet that he never would be able to resist, hadn't been since that first day in the observation room; she drew his eyes, his attention and, if he was fully honest with himself, his heart too. No matter how many brunettes Scotty tried to fill his free time with – and also some of his work time but that was another story entirely – it didn't seem to help at all; his partner was firmly in his heart and he really didn't have the slightest clue how he'd ever be able to get her out of there, how anyone else could ever compare to this beautiful enigma.

Crap. Life just insisted on constantly kicking his butt.

Things get damaged, things get broken
I thought we'd manage, but words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give