AUTHORS NOTE: Okey Dokey, this is a Closer fiction (obviously, haha). Takes place some time before season six, a time when Daniels still worked with these fine people (season...four? maybe? I should check that out sometime). Or maybe it takes place in an alternate universe where Daniels stayed on the team, which means this could be in season five if you prefer...hmmm...how about it takes place when you want it to. You all have independent thought, right?

Her mother had invited herself to California.

Fritz was mad at her for some reason and she couldn't remember why and had been too exhausted to ask him.

Her car had started acting just plain odd on her drive to work, the radio turning on without her wanting it too and playing the most annoying love songs in the whole history of music.

On her elevator ride up to the sixth floor she was trapped with an almost hysterical beat cop who chose that moment to confide in the first woman he saw, telling her that it wasn't his fault and that he really did love his wife and he would never cheat with a that whore Emily again.

When she pulled away from the beat cop, leaving the elevator a floor too early just to make her hasty escape, the heel of one of her favorite pink shoes broke off. Her hands were full, she was exhausted and her balance and coordination wasn't all that great just now, were the things she thought of as she made her short trip to the floor. She also had the irrational thought that if she'd taken that one extra minute in the car and eaten that chocolate bar hiding in her glove box this could have all been avoided.

To make the fall just a little bit better, a little bit extraordinary, she plopped with no grace at the feet of Commander Taylor, whose face was caught in an intense battle between concern and amusement.

She shuffled herself around, shoving uncooperating papers in her hands as she greeted Taylor as if nothing at all had happened and they had just accidently brushed shoulders. She looked up at him, a false smile plastered on her painted lips, and knew immedietly that Commander Taylor was worried about her. Which made her angry and she didn't know why.

"Hey," he said, kneeling down on one knee, laying a surprisingly gentle hand on her shoulder, "Chief, are you alright?" he asked, somehow asking her about everything, her whole life up till this second, in just one question.

She was tired. She was late for work. She had just fallen and actually thought she might be hurt. But most of all, and most importantly, she hadn't eaten anything yet that morning and felt hollow and empty and really needed something yummy to chew on to get herself together. But she didn't have something yummy, she had a tall, stern, manuevering black man who alternately seemed to like her and hate her. Her bottom lip started to tremble, which made her furious, how dare her bottom lip do something so embarrassing as that? She drew the renagade piece of her face into her mouth, biting down on it as she shook her head in a 'haha don't be silly' motion.

Taylor's hand moved closer to her neck and squeezed, just a little pressure, he looked at her closely, as if making sure she could feel it, making sure she had the appropriate expression on her face as he did so. Brenda said something bitchy then, she couldn't recall what, something about her and his rank, or about her Divisions track record compared to his, but whatever she had said, she had expected Taylor to walk away, shooting an equally snipy remark over his shoulder. But he just helped her with her strewn papers, helped her stand, held her elbow while she took off her broken shoes and looked at her curiously as she limped towards the stairwell.

In the stairwell, right between floors five and six, Brenda Leigh had a tiny, miniscule, ridiculously itsy cryng fit. She sat on the concrete steps, her poor broken shoes cradled in her arms as if she'd lost a child and not a pair of pumps. But try as she might, and she did try, my god did she try, she couldn't shake the feeling that her shoes, these shoes that had been with her since her time in D.C., were valued friends who had carried her for years and who in their moment of weakness would be thrown in the trash can of her office. Things started to catch up to her then, like why was Fritz mad, and why was her Mama coming when she hadn't asked her, and why, why did her favorite pair of shoes, her reliable, beautiful, pink shoes have to go and break? Didn't they know how awful her day had been? Weren't they sitting right on that kitchen table when she'd gotten off the phone with her Mama and had ranted into the empty sink? Weren't they dangling from her fingers when Fritz had screamed at her that morning?

Didn't they love her, like she loved them?

It was at that point that she decided that this whole thing was ludicrus and that she was not going to be a woman who cried over a pair of shoes. She stood, marched up the steps to her floor and flung the door open wide, striding with a confidence she didn't feel, her bare feet slapping against the less than clean floor. And it wasn't until she stood in the middle of her squad room, every pair of eyes in that open space pointed at her, that she remembered that she'd literaly rolled out of bed that morning, thrown on the first thing she could find, and left the house, leaving Fritz smouldering in their bedroom.

"Chief, you look like shit!" Flynn called from his desk, his voice a blend of reproach, shock, and concern, his squinted eyes surverying her in surprise as he leaned back in his chair, as if to seperate himself from her, apparently, disasterous appearnce.

"Well thank you, Lieutenant," she said quietly, limping while trying to make it look like she wasn't limping to her office as fast as her lumbering pace could allow.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see both the Detective Daniels, so pretty with curls in her hair, and Lieutenant Provenza, sleeves rolled up on his crinkly white shirt, throw pencils at Flynn, who batted them away without looking, his gaze still following Brenda's petite form as she neared her office.

And as she closed the glass door to her office she heard his clear voice, "Seriously, she looked like shit. She was limping, Provenza, is she alright?"

"Who am I? Her father," Provenza said, his acid tone slashing across the room towards Flynn, "Go ask her yourself."

But Flynn didn't get up, Brenda could see him through her glass walls as she shut the door, he sat at his desk, looking sneakily over his shoulder at her and then back at his desk. She sighed as she turned away, placing her lovely shoes inside the cabinet behind her chair, she turned, scanned the room, and opened her snack drawer. She pulled out a nutty and fantastic piece of chocolate, she unwrapped it carefully, fondling it and caressing it like she would a lover, she took the chocolate and raised it to her lips, eyes closed, blissful expression on her face as the candy melted on her tongue. She leaned back in her chair, moaning softly as some semblance of peace entered her mind.

She stayed that way, even after the candy had melted all away, she stayed that way for a good few minutes. She didn't feel like moving. She didn't feel like ever getting up from her chair, or leaving her office, or really ever going any place where someone might yell at her, impose on her, or make her feel like she needed taking care of. Those were three things Brenda Leigh didn't like.

Brenda opened her eyes, looked straight through her glass walls and saw Provenza looking at her from his desk, which was twenty feet away, but parallel to her own. He nodded his head, stating clearly that 'yes, I was watching you, and you better be alright.' She smiled back, waving slightly, the empty candy wrapper still in her hand. She saw him roll his eyes and look back down to the paperwork in front of him, and that filled her with nice feelings. Because Provenza was Provenza no matter who Brenda Leigh was or how she felt that day, she could be dying of a gunshot wound and Provenza would still be Provenza.

She threw her wrapper onto her desk, where it blended in with the many others residing there, before she looked in front of her properly. And for the first time since she entered her office she saw a pink envelope propped against her computer screen. In a messy hand 'Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson' was scrawled across it in black ink, Brenda frowned at the misspelling of her middle name and plucked it from her desktop. She opened it without any real interest, knowing it wouldn't be from Fritz or her squad, or even Will Pope who she hoped knew how to spell her name. He was her boss after all, bosses usually knew how to spell their employees names, unless they were difficult or something. Brenda's name wasn't difficult, was it? She frowned as she unfolded the crisp white paper taken from the envelope.

"Allison looks alot like you. She's blonde."

Brenda's frown became deeper, more serious. Those two sentances, written by an unamed person and delivered to her office, was enough to instantly make her adrenaline skyrocket.

"Allison will die tonight. She will be walking home from the supermarket, a gallon of milk in one hand, a bag filled with fresh produce in the other. She doesn't like candy. But she still looks like you. Her head will be down, her eyes trained on the ground because, really, she will be more worried about tripping in the dark then a man with a knife stabbing her. If she looks up she might have time to run away, she's healthy, and thin like you. But she won't be looking up, and won't be able to avoid the cold, biting metal as it twists itself into her insides and tears her apart.

She'll probably gasp and drop what is in her hands, the milk gallon will fall to the ground and split open."

Brenda stood up, sending her chair reeling backwards as her trembling hands held the crisp paper. The door to her office opened, and CIA trained senses knew that at least three people had entered her office, all men.

"And the stench of that milk, spoiled after lingering all night around poor Allison, will what force you to feel sick tomorrow. That smell, that nauseating smell, is what will take you out of your comfort zone, it won't be Allison's big brown eyes (so much like yours) staring at you from the pavement, it won't be her wide lips pale and screaming silently or the blood flung everywhere that will force you to flinch. It will be the smell of old milk.

And that is why I love you,

Yours Truly."

Brenda looked up, brown eyes staring out at Flynn, Provenza, and Detective Sanchez, who stood before her desk looking at her like she was suddenly made of glass. "Chief?" Flynn asked, the tone of his voice making it clear that this was not the first time he'd tried to get her attention.

She placed the paper down on her desk, blinking, "I need SID in here," she said rounding her desk, drawing her purse towards her like a shield.

"Chief?" Provenza said, his gruff voice confused. He reached towards the paper on her desk, intending to read what some asshole had written to get her worked up.

But she turned on him, "No!" she screeched, her southern inflection suddenly turning up full, "Don't nobody touch a thang in this office, get SID in here now, I need prints off of that," she said, pointing at the pink envelope and the disturbing letter it had contained.

"What's going on Chief?" Sanchez asked, as he was shooed out of the office. "What did that say?"

She closed the door behind her, looking at that decievingly sweet pink envelope on her desk, "SID," she said, stonily and venomously cold, but still with that honey coated twang.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: If Brenda Leigh Johnson belonged to me that would be weird and I wouldn't know what to say.