February 9^th, 2017. 1pm.

It was Katy’s fourth shift in as many days, and Alex stood there at the entrance to the ER, an out-of-the-way watcher. Not that she could blame her, really. What else was there to do? Sit there and worry? Nope. Both she and Katy had full faith in the investigatory team.

Not that Alex was certain that it kept Katy from doing investigation-related things in her downtime, but Alex didn’t think that was a reasonable requirement. Her daughter had been missing for three years, of course she was going to look into it.

“Aren’t you…?” Alex heard a woman say, and turned to see an older, mid-60s woman peering at Katy with a concerned expression.

Katy smiled, her eyes gentle. “Yes. Let’s see, you said you’ve been having chest pains?”

The older woman nodded, her attention apparently redirected, and Katy continued on with her job. It was easy to follow Katy with her eyes as she flitted from one patient to the next, taking a break to enter orders, call doctors, escort her patients to CT or X-rays or whatever they needed. Maybe that was how Katy had survived Tally’s disappearance so well. She seemed unflappable.

Or maybe that was a side-effect of Tally’s disappearance. Part of Alex wished she had known her before, as silly as that was. It didn’t matter, not really. She knew Katy now, and that was what mattered.

Her cheeks flushed as she thought back to the almost-kiss the night before. Crap.

In a perfect world, she would have informed her supervisor and removed herself from the case. But it wasn’t a perfect world, and surely Alex could separate her feelings from the case. It was different because she was a liaison, she rationalized, and was only peripherally involved in the investigation. Instead she directed resources, and helped in the ways she could.

At the moment she was basically acting like a glorified bodyguard, but she didn’t mind it. It was different enough from her usual job that she liked it. And besides, she liked the excuse to stare at Katy the entire time.

Alex really had wanted to kiss her. She still did. She wanted to know what Katy’s lips felt against hers, how her body did. And that was such a dangerous road to go down. Even if she wanted to.

There was a shout that pulled her back to the present, the sound of glass breaking and a scuffle. Immediately she headed towards the source of the noise, part of her mind noticing that it was the room Katy had entered a minute or two prior. There was a patient, a tall, burly man, with his hand around Katy’s neck, squeezing.

Alex kicked the back of his knee, watching it buckle before she swept her legs to take him down and pinned him, pulling his hands behind his back. She didn’t have handcuffs, and he was struggling, but it wasn’t the first time she had restrained someone twice her size.

“Get down!” Security came rushing in.

Katy leaned against the wall, her eyes wide and frightened, and her hand on her neck. One of the other nurses entered the small room, immediately going to her.

“Are you okay?” Alex asked, letting security take over. Whether he was psychotic or just a dick, he was going to have to answer for what he’d just done.

Katy nodded, even though she didn’t speak. Instead, she closed her eyes. Alex stood there, not certain whether to rush to her or keep her distance. She had to remain professional, detached, but she wanted to check on her. She wanted to make sure she was okay.

The other nurse talked to Katy quietly. Katy nodded, and then shook her head. Alex refocused her attention to the nurse. “You should go home,” the nurse said.

Katy shook her head. “I have a couple more hours.”

The nurse put her hands on her hips. “You just got throttled.”

Katy met her with hard eyes. “I have three more hours in my shift.” It wasn’t anger, it wasn’t bitterness.

What Alex saw there was loss. If she left her job, all she would do was go home and think about the things she came to her job to escape. Katy had already hit her max hours for the week; she would have to take at least three days off. Alex came closer, something fluttering in her chest. There was a complicated knot of emotions that she couldn’t process, that she would shove aside for later. “I’ll keep an eye on her.” She caught sight of the other nurse’s name tag. Tina.

Tina turned to look at her, eyebrows confused. Then her head flicked back and forth between Katy and Alex, something in her eyes. Was it understanding? Was it skepticism? Alex was good at reading human behavior, but sometimes she even had areas out of her depth of expertise. Katy in particular seemed to live in that gray area.

Tina nodded then left the room.

“She was just worried.” Katy’s voice was grittier than Alex would have liked, the harsh soreness of someone whose vocal cords had been compromised. It was something that Alex had unfortunate experience with. A couple cases ago, she had ended up cornered by an unexpected suspect and strangled. Thankfully her partner had been not too far away and rescued her so they could apprehend the suspect, but it had sucked.

Alex refrained from saying the same things Tina had. Did she want Katy to go home and rest? Yes. Did she know why Katy wasn’t going to? Yes, too. “I’m going to shadow you for the rest of your shift,” Alex said instead. She was standing close to Katy now, their bodies mirroring each other. Katy looked up at her, emphasizing their height difference.

How did Alex not notice how long her eyelashes were until now? How beautiful her eyes were. It was the little things that you paid attention to when you were that close to someone.

A male voice cleared his throat. Katy’s eyes darted to Alex’s side. “Dr. Bob,” she rasped.

Alex looked at her, eyebrows raised. Was she serious?

“Yes, my name is Dr. Bob.” The ER doctor looked amused, but his attention flickered between the two of them. “Tina sent me over to check your neck.”

A frown flashed over Katy’s face, but she nodded.

“I’m coming with you,” Alex warned him, before he got any sort of ideas.

Dr. Bob just nodded, something that Alex respected. They went to another ER room, where he gave Katy a cursory physical exam.

Alex almost wanted to sit on her hands, to keep herself from manhandling the male doctor out of the room and letting Alex do the exam. Not that she was a doctor, not that she knew nearly as much as the doctor did, but after seeing Katy with someone’s hand around her throat, the absolute last thing Alex wanted was to let someone touch her.

Apparently Alex did have a jealous streak. And a possessive one, too. She didn’t let her surprise or annoyance flash across her face. Or at least she hoped she didn’t. She wasn’t normally that type, but Katy’s inner strength called to something in her. Katy had already been through enough. The last thing she needed was something else to deal with.

“You should go home,” Dr. Bob said kindly.

Alex could predict Katy’s words before she said them. “Thanks, but no thanks.” Katy smiled a tired smile.

Dr. Bob nodded, instead of saying anything in protest. Alex didn’t know for certain, but she would have guessed that he had encountered Katy and her stubbornness before.

If Tally was still alive - the thought made Alex’s breath catch in her throat - it was likely due to that stubborn streak she had gotten from her mother.

When he left, Katy turned to look at her, and there was a ghost in her eyes. There was also something else underneath her expression, something that Alex had seen a spark of last night. “That reminded me of something,” Katy said softly.

Alex looked at her, confusion evident in her face. There was a whole lot of things that Katy could be referring to, and Alex wasn’t entirely certain which one it was.

“There was a mother.” Katy paused, thinking. “When I was working in the ER a few months before Tally —” She couldn’t finish it, and Alex just nodded. “Her kid came in DOA, and no matter what we did, we couldn’t get her back.” Katy’s eyes were distant now. “She attacked me, too.”

Alex kept her face blank, not letting her emotions show. How often did Katy get attacked in the ER that she couldn’t recall the incidents when the topic came up? “Do you remember her name?” She was already pulling her phone out, getting ready to send a message to the analysts back at her home office.

Katy shook her head. She looked apologetic, almost. “I see so many patients that it blends together.”

“Get me what you know, I’ll send it to my analyst who will get a subpoena for the medical records and we’ll find it.” Alex looked at her, fingers flying across the keyboard on her phone.

Katy gave a short description, more subdued than Alex would have expected. Then again, she had just been strangled. But something else felt off about her. The way she held her head slightly low and to the side, the way she stayed close to Alex without moving away but kept her arms wrapped around her middle as if she was hugging herself.

Alex didn’t know what it was, but she wanted to kiss Katy until the worry in her face went away. She stomped down the feelings. It was just lust, and it was ignorable, she reminded herself sternly. Or something. She’d figure out the details later.

Katy smiled at her, even though it was an empty one, and then headed out of the small treatment room and back into the nurses’ hub. Alex left the room as well, and stood not too far away. She didn’t necessarily want to be able to hear everything, but she wanted to be close enough in case something happened to Katy again and she needed to intervene.

The rest of the shift passed uneventfully, with Katy juggling her patients and everything running as smoothly as it could be expected to in the ER. No one else jumped her, and no one else even mentioned the case, apparently so caught up in their own lives.

It was interesting, the variety of patients that came into the ER. Everything from “I’ve had a cold since this morning give me meds” to “Yeah I can’t move my arm and it’s been like that for two weeks, can you wrap it up so I can go back to work?” And everything else in between.

She lifted her head to see Katy talking into a mobile phone, her face serious.

“We have a car crash incoming,” Katy said, pitching her voice so the other nurses could hear. “Including a 15yo with possible internal injuries.”

“Why can’t they go to the bloody peds hospital?” another nurse muttered, close enough that Alex could hear. And she agreed.

At least it was a teenager. Not that it made it entirely better. Since Alex dealt with child abductions, the majority of her cases were children under 10. It was rare that a teenager fit their criteria, but sometimes they did.

None of her cases were fun.

Instead she fit herself in the back part of the ER, watching as they worked like a well-oiled machine. The kid was at least conscious, a confused-looking male teen who stared stonily at everything once they started talking to him.

It was an hour past Katy’s shift end when they were finally able to leave, Alex by Katy’s side. She wasn’t entirely certain what it was about the teen that had pulled at her, but he did.

No, that was a lie. She did know. The one thing she hated about her job was being exposed to the constant waste of life. People who went down the wrong paths and took someone else’s kid for whatever purpose. Kids who died far too young, who would never grow up and have their own lives.

It was hard not to think about it. At least that teen would grow up and live. Maybe he wouldn’t have any scars.

Alex didn’t remember what it was like to be that way. Not just physically, but mentally as well.

“You’re thinking a lot,” Katy said simply.

Alex dipped her head in a nod as she got into the SUV, unlocking the passenger side for Katy. She didn’t say anything, though, because she wasn’t sure what to say. There was confidentiality to take care of, but there were also other factors. Like she didn’t want to scare Katy off. She wanted Katy to stay.

God, she was in over her head. It wasn’t just lust, it was other crap too. Half of her was pleased. It had been a long time since she had had a crush on someone.

The other half was shouting how unprofessional it was, how she should be ashamed of herself.

She ignored that half. She had the short drive home to get her shit together, and that was it.