DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE CLOSER OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS - I'M JUST PLAYING WITH THEM.

AUTHOR NOTE: The latest in the 'Nemesis' series, and somewhat of an Un-Valentine's story.

Isn't It Romantic?

14 February 2010, 9:47 p.m.

The face opposite hers has taken on a sweaty, greasy sheen; a bead of perspiration stands out against his skin and she watches it begin to roll down his forehead. He blinks. Fingers flex, the nails scoring the surface of the battered metal table - itself already scarred from numerous interrogations.

Brenda sits back, waits.

'She didn't understand, and that's all I was trying to make her do.' His voice has taken on a familiar self-pitying whine. They always manage to feel so sorry for themselves. 'I loved her.'

'Yes. You just had a funny way of showing it.'

Beside her Gabriel shakes his head, sitting back, arms folded - he's starting to look older, she thinks. She scoops up the photographs, the letters. 'Sergeant.'

She leaves the room before he's finished the ritual - 'You are under arrest for the murder of...' - and out in the corridor breathes in stale air. It tastes fresh after the interrogation suite.

10:53 p.m.

When Brenda makes her way back down to the Murder Room from Pope's office the squad have almost cleared the board - making way for the next round. A tabula rasa for impending horrors. Flynn is erasing his own neat printing, takes down the crime scene photos. Brenda glances at them and shudders. Bright cardboard cut-outs spattered with blood.

'I never want to see another Valentine's heart as long as I live.'

'That's why I hate the whole Valentine's thing,' Flynn tells her, 'it brings out the worst in people.'

She manages a half-smile at that.

The media coverage had already been calling it the St Valentine's Massacre, never allowing little things like inaccuracies to get in the way of a catchy headline. The killings had taken place two days before; but the jewellery store where Jenny Owen had worked had been promoting a Valentine's special. What is it, she wonders, about a certain kind of man? The kind that thinks that he has a right to a woman just because he wants her. Jenny and her three co-workers all dead because Mark Eastman had decided that if he couldn't have her, no-one else would.

'Pity the little bastard didn't just shoot himself in the head first, save us all the trouble,' Flynn says. He finishes taking down the photographs and puts the lid on the box, covering Jenny's pretty face. 'Do you want this in your office?'

She sighs, nods, and he follows her.

'Didn't you have any plans for the most romantic night of the year?' she asks, her words laden with sarcasm.

Flynn places the box on the table. 'I do. I have a hot date with my couch and ESPN. Can't wait.' He tilts his head back, draws a breath. 'That reminds me: Fritz called a bunch of times-'

'Oh, shoot!' Her shoulders slump and she closes her eyes against everything. She looks like she's in pain. Her eyes open again and the expression that greets her is closed and neutral. 'We had reservations at eight o'clock...'

'Yeah, I figured.' His hands spread, drop back to his sides. 'I told him the situation; I think he's back at home.' He tries to sound helpful.

Brenda picks hopelessly at a loose piece of paper on her desk. It is pain. Guilt. Another failure on her part, just one more thing to add to the catalogue. Yet there is also a sort of relief. 'It's such a stupid day anyhow,' she mutters.

Flynn's eyebrows go up. 'Really? With all that chocolate I would have thought it would be like a religious feast for you.'

She glares at him emphatically. 'I hate being forced to be romantic.'

His head tilts slightly, eyes flicking away from her momentarily the way they always do when he's considering something. 'I can't argue with you there. But then if I ever get the urge to be romantic at all I take two aspirin and lie down in a darkened room until the feeling passes.'

Papers get shoved into her bag, scrunching down on top of the others already there and she swings it up onto her shoulder. 'I don't believe that - I bet you go all out.'

He blinks at her, silent for once, and she tries, hard, to pretend not to notice; it's as though time has performed a little stammer and she glances down at her desk, tosses her hair back and carries on.

'I don't even have any chocolate.'

His eyes widen. 'You always have chocolate.'

She shakes her head mournfully. 'I don't. I threw it all out. I'm trying to give up sugar. Again.'

It's more horror than sympathy on his face; a breath gets sucked in. 'That's rough, Chief.'

'It really is.' Her voice wobbles. Maybe when she gets home there will be something. It's the sort of thing that Fritz does. More Valentine's hearts, she thinks, but she can live with it. Once the reproach and all of her apologies are out of the way. Right now she isn't certain she has the strength for that.

He opens his mouth then stops, and she recognises the look. A scheme of some sort.

'Just hang on.'

He goes back out into the Murder Room; it's empty but he puts on a show of looking around, moving lightly between the desks until he reaches Tao's, looks around again furtively before delving into one of the drawers. He returns with the prize, handing it to her with a flourish.

'You're not the only one with a stash,' he says.

Her eyes gleam. 'Lieutenant Tao has a candy drawer?'

'Well... It's more of a candy-personal-grooming-and-multi-purpose-bribe drawer.'

She pauses in unwrapping the bar. 'Bribe?'

One hand trails through the air. 'You don't want to know. This is above and beyond the weekly Kahlua.'

The foil wrapper, once peeled away, reveals something flaky and crumbling and dense. Brenda breathes in the scent, always enjoying the anticipation as much as the consummation, lingers with it a moment before taking that first bite. It is dry and then melting, soft and smooth; it coats the inside of her mouth and she runs her tongue through it and then across her lips, catching every part. The sigh of relief is deep.

'Would you like some?' She holds out the bar, still half-wrapped and jagged with her teeth-marks. There is a pause before he answers; his eyes haven't left her face.

'I'm good. Thanks.'

She nods and can't help the tiny moan of appreciation when she takes the second bite; and she doesn't notice, or doesn't care, that Flynn smiles slightly as he's watching her.

'I have to find out where he gets those,' she says, dreamy, when it's over.

'It's some place out on Ventura.' She looks at him; he shrugs. 'I'm a detective, I know stuff.'

Brenda throws the empty wrapper into the waste-bin. 'I'm a detective and I didn't know about Lieutenant Tao's candy drawer.'

He shrugs lightly. 'Yeah, but you have to deal with all the higher-up stuff.'

She is silent for a moment, her brows drawn together and she looks at him down her eyes. 'I'd ask you what you keep in yours but I think I'm afraid to.'

He is solemn. 'Apart from my shrine to Provenza, you mean?'

She laughs and starts for the door.

Through corridors then down in the elevator their exchanges are friendly; they share general observations and jokes. The jokes are all Flynn's and he smiles when she rolls her eyes good-naturedly. It's nice, she thinks, almost effortless. She starts to relax and that might be the problem: it lets the exhaustion sink in. She starts yawning and can't stop.

Flynn eyes her critically, hesitates. 'Do you want to get some coffee?'

'What about your date with ESPN?'

'That's the joy of TiVo.'

Her brow furrows. 'I should get that.' She remembers the collection of boxes and cables that Fritz has spent hours arranging and rearranging and thinks it's possible that they do in fact have it already.

Her hand smothers another yawn and she hears her jaw crack. She should go straight home.

11:22 p.m.

Sam's Diner will probably never make it onto the list of go-to places in Los Angeles. It will probably never make it onto the list of go-to diners. But it is open and it is close. They have their pick of the seats and claim two stools at the counter.

'Two coffees,' Flynn says.

The waitress' voice is a rasp stained by nicotine and too many long nights. 'If you order a large coffee you get a slice of pie with it. Valentine's special.'

Flynn looks slightly hysterical at the prospect.

'Large coffees,' Brenda confirms. His head turns to her. 'I'm hungry,' she mutters. He rolls his eyes.

Their hostess slops away, returns with the coffee and one plate. 'Last piece,' she says, voice grating.

Out of the corner of her eye Brenda can see his shoulders roll, head coming forward, belligerent.

'Thank you so much.' She smiles. 'We'll share it.'

Rasp-voice moves away again. Flynn pushes the plate towards her. 'Have it.'

'You don't want any?' She talks through a mouthful of crumbs. 'It's really good.'

He looks at her and the dark sweet smudge clinging to the corner of her mouth; her tongue flicks out, catches it. He picks up the fork she nudges towards him.

They sit and eat. Traffic provides the low background hum behind the tinny music from the radio (badly tuned) sitting between the cups and glasses. The waitress ambles past, spares them a glance, then heads outside for a cigarette and they watch her lean heavily against the window, taking some of the weight off her overworked feet.

'Hell of a world, isn't it?' he says.

'Yes.' And she wonders if they're talking about the same thing, or if they even know, and decides that it doesn't matter.

Another sound joins in, a buzzing hum. Flynn drops his fork, pulls out his phone; he frowns at the screen and shoves it back into his pocket.

'Is that important?'

'It's not work; it was just George. Ette. Georgette. He- she and Provenza are out tonight.'

She wipes her mouth. 'I didn't know she was in town.'

'Yeah, it's the big visit.'

The coffee has cooled enough to be drunk; it doesn't taste of much: thin and watery and a little too sweet, even for her. 'I would have thought that you'd go out with them.'

He blows out a breath. 'I don't know what's worse: the thought of a single's bar to begin with or watching Provenza flirt.' He shakes his head. 'Besides, George was always more Provenza's friend than mine; actually, I think I prefer him more now that he's a girl. Woman. Don't get me wrong, George was a great cop but he could also be a bit of a jerk.' His eyes slide towards her. 'Yeah, I know: the irony.'

Her cheek is propped on her hand; she doesn't quite laugh but she shakes her head. 'You are a very strange man.'

'I'll take that as a compliment.'

It hadn't been meant as an insult. It seems so long ago, their old antagonism, that she can barely remember what it was like. Everything in between has cancelled it out so completely it's as though it never happened - except to be the source of the occasional joke. She thinks about the endless trouble that he seems to attract like a magnet, and the disagreements that they've had, and that of all the people she has disagreed with - and there have been many - he's with the ones she respects the most; she thinks about the moments that have defined them and about that single kiss, of which they have never spoken and probably never will; she wonders what he did with the mistletoe berry.

'We all have our moments,' she says and demolishes the last of the pie. She can feel him watch her and then they both sink back into that silent space. The air is coloured by the requests being made on the radio station: dedications to both immortal and transitory beloveds that precede ballads dripping in saccharine sentimentality. They are broken by waves of static, angry staccato buzzes that add a realism to the expressed illusion.

Flynn's head raises again and his gaze seems fixed on an indeterminate point between the coffee cups and the milkshake glasses. 'It's also Chinese New Year today.' He looks at his watch. 'Well, for the next few minutes it still is.'

'Oh? Is that something else Lieutenant Tao told you?'

'No, I know that all on my own.' He grins at her. 'Detective, remember?'

She smiles. 'I remember.'

'It's sort of like a second chance to start the year right all over again - and it's only February.'

Second chances are always a nice idea, she thinks. Sometimes they even work out; sometimes they're even worth more than you would have thought. His face is a little more than in profile and she watches the way the colour of his eyes shifts.

'Happy New Year, Lieutenant Flynn.'

His head turns, sharp, and the corners of his mouth curl. 'Happy New Year, Chief.'

They raise their coffee cups and drink.

15 February 2010, 00:02 a.m.

'Well, that's it.' He stretches out his shoulders. 'Maybe this new year will be better than the other new year.'

Beside him Brenda leans heavily against her hands, elbows on the counter. She sways slightly. 'I love this song.'

He tilts his head, catches the tune. 'Yeah... It's not bad.'

Her eyes drift closed and she hums softly in the back of her throat; when she opens her eyes again he is watching her, watches her still when she looks back from under heavy lids.

'I, uh...' He looks away, fingers linking together and he stares down at them. 'I guess we should both get going.' He starts to move.

She straightens, holds her eyes wider for a moment and releases a long breath. 'Would you like more coffee?'

He stops. 'I think I would.'

FIN