Essential Listening: New York, New York, by Reel Big Fish

0o0

The team had been sufficiently on edge to put their stab vests on before they even got inside St Barclays. Something big was coming and it was impossible to tell what.

Emily watched Hotch doing up his tie, his fingers clumsier than normal. Who even bothered with a tie at a time like this?

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He was building a mask for himself, with the clothes he was used to – that he was used to other people respecting.

"Yeah," he said, glancing up at her. "I just wanna understand why I'm still alive."

"We think the idea was to maim, not to kill," said Reid.

"Did you identify Sam, the bomber?" Hotch asked, tenderly wincing his way into his own bullet-proof vest.

Reid nodded, though the answer was a negative. It wasn't like they were expecting anything else.

"Garcia put Sam into every known database – nothing."

"We know how terror cells evolve," said Rossi. "They learn from one campaign to the next. How to stay off radar, like the London bombers."

"Yeah, but they – uh – they hit at eight fifty in the morning with a series of co-ordinated blasts aimed at London's transportation system," Hotch argued.

Behind him, Grace shifted from foot to foot. "They did a pretty thorough job of it," she grumbled.

Emily wondered if she'd been there that day, seen the effects of that attack first-hand.

"This cell targeted a lone SUV where the only two people on the street were federal agents," Hotch continued.

"If it's not multiple targets it's one target," said Morgan. "One target, one bomb."

"Garcia said the device was placed under Kate's SUV," Rossi reminded them.

"It was likely made using oxidising agents including chromates, peroxides, perchlorates and red mercury," Reid told them. "All jammed into a device no larger than a cell phone."

"Imagine what a bomb the size of an oil-drum could do," Morgan reflected.

"Something that size would be pretty hard to disguise," Grace remarked. "Where would you deploy it – how would you deploy it?"

Emily frowned. It would be tricky, but this cell had been scarily clever thus far.

"To make something that big you'd need a chemical engineer," said Hotch, already halfway to accepting that the thing existed.

"Like the 'recently deceased' Doctor Azahari Hoseem, Asia's most wanted bomb maker?" Rossi suggested. "Authorities dubbed him the – um – 'Demolition Man'."

"The things people do to be remembered," Grace muttered, shaking her head.

"He treated each bomb like a work of art," Rossi went on. "One wrong move, he becomes a victim of his own creation. He'll be more revered than all of the people who died because of his devices."

"Stop the bomber, stop the bomb," Emily reflected.

"To do that we need to know how they would deploy somethin' that big," said Morgan, with a nod in Grace's direction.

They were going around in circles.

"Hotch," said Reid, softly.

The footage of the explosion was looping on the laptop Emily had brought with her. Hotch watched it mutely for a moment.

"Did you find Sam's cell phone?" he asked Morgan.

"Yes."

"Did he ever call 911?"

"No. He dialled one number six times every few minutes."

"It was a disposable cell," Rossi added.

"Garcia tracked the number, but it went dead minutes after Sam died," Reid told him. "Whoever had it, destroyed it."

"So…" Grace began, frowning at Hotch. "Where did that other ambulance come from?"

Everyone seemed to look around. As big as an oil drum? Damn.

"In a city in lock-down an ambulance with its siren blaring and lights on – it's gonna make it through every road block, virtually uncontested," Emily observed.

"Straight into a hospital with a bypass order on it," Hotch said, slowly.

"What?"

"Secret Service has a bypass on this hospital."

Emily felt her mouth fall open.

"Secret Service? Who are they protecting?" Rossi asked.

"This hospital is their target," said Hotch, with an air of urgency. "Let's go."

0o0

Secret Service hadn't taken much convincing – perhaps because the sudden appearance of six deadly serious FBI agents was fairly diagnostic of how much trouble they were all in. They'd hit the alarms while Rossi got Garcia to jam all the cell frequencies. It was just unfortunate that whomever they were protecting was in the middle of surgery.

They needed to buy as much time as they could, for everyone in the hospital – and if the cell phone was the trigger…

Morgan had departed at some speed to the basement where the ambulance-bomb was parked while the others co-ordinated with Garcia and Lisa Bartleby to shut off his access.

"Look, the EMT's coming back," Emily exclaimed, as the cell signal was disrupted. "He's going to detonate it manually if he has to."

"Where did Morgan go?" Hotch asked, looking around.

"He went to find the ambulance," said Reid, nodding at the camera.

Morgan was running down the stairs, taking whole clumps of them at a time.

"Alone?" Hotch demanded.

"Let's head down!" Rossi urged.

The others set off immediately, but Grace hung back – someone needed to co-ordinate with Secret Service, and she doubted one more agent running down the stairs would help right now.

"Move Echo-One to the roof as soon as he's out of surgery," the head Secret Service agent barked at one of his men. "Air-vac him outta here. The rest of us, we'll take the elevators."

"Keep an eye on that guy and let us know if he moves," Grace told the guy, haring after his colleagues. "I'm going with you."

The Secret Service agents glared at her momentarily, but didn't make a move to stop her. The bomb downstairs would take out more than 'Echo-One' and it was all hands on deck to stop that happening.

"We'll lose radios in the elevator," one of them said. "Oh – uh – ladies first, ma'am."

There was a truly bizarre moment when every Secret Service agent moved out of Grace's way, gallantly letting her get into the lift first and then effectively sealing her at the back of it.

"Well, look at that," she said, automatically trying to lighten the tense silence as they headed down. "Chivalry isn't dead."

"No ma'am," the nearest agent smiled down at her, a little patronising in his manner.

The lift came to a halt, bouncing slightly on its cable, and then chimed.

Their guns were ready when the doors opened, but not up – which was unfortunate because the unsub was waiting for them. He unloaded his gun into the lift.

Grace, stuck behind four beefy Secret Service agents, had enough time to react – but it wasn't her gun she reached for. Running on blind instinct she threw her left hand up, protecting herself. The air shimmered. The bullets curved around her, slamming into the wall at her back as if they'd gone straight through her. One of them caught her upper arm, tearing through the flesh.

The other agents weren't so lucky. They fell to the floor around her, already dead.

For a split second, she and the unsub stared at one another, before he raised his gun again. There wasn't time to think.

Magic surged through her and she threw him back into the wall, cracking the concrete.

The lift doors began to close, sticking on the legs of one of the dead agents. She forced her way through, trying to disentangle herself from the cooling limbs, but the unsub had already scrambled to his feet and made off.

"Officers down!" she shouted, into her radio. "Hotch – he's in the basement!"

She started after the trail of bloody footprints.

"Prentiss! Reid!" she called, but the receiver remained stubbornly dead. It must have been blown out by the force of her shield. "Fuck!"

0o0

Safe in her control room, Garcia had entered that state of zen-like calm that meant her babies were in trouble and there wasn't anything she could do about it.

"Morgan?"

"Yeah baby?"

He'd responded quickly, but he didn't sound happy at all.

Keep him talking, she thought. If he needs something I can be right there.

"You sound stressed."

"Do I?"

"Where are you?"

She could hear him breathing hard. A run down eight flights of stairs could do that.

"Not where I wanna be right now." There was a pause. "Garcia, take this down for me: 'FD108'."

"That's an ambulance," she said, with a frown. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine – just track it for me."

He gave a huff. Disappointment, she decided, or frustration. Something in his general area started beeping.

"Oh my God," he breathed. "Garcia, how long can you keep jammin' the cell phone lines?"

"Uh… a few minutes, max. Why?"

There was something new in his voice – something she hadn't often heard from her Superfox. It made her blood run cold.

"Because I'm gonna have to get this ambulance outta here."

"Or you could just evacuate the building like everybody else," she snapped.

"No. As soon as the airways are clear, this thing's goin' up."

"What? Oh my God! That's in, like, three minutes, 'cause that's when the satellite moves position!" she exclaimed.

It was pointless arguing with him. If there was a chance he could save all those lives he would take it. She could tell from his voice he had already made up his mind. She heard the slamming of a door.

"Come on, come on… Garcia, listen to me. I need you to find an area of town I can drive this thing and tell everybody – I mean everybody – that I'm comin'."

Penelope started typing, one eye still on the satellite that was keeping her soulmate safe.

"Come on baby! Do it! Go!"

The sound of an ignition starting up bled through the radio.

"Alright, talk to me Garcia!"

"Okay," she said, breathlessly scanning the maps. "Head north – and floor it. I'll tell you where to turn."

She heard the screech of tyres as he sped through the basement of the hospital, and – something else. Small bangs. Gunshots?

"What was that?" she demanded, panicking.

"It's nothin', it's nothin' – just talk to me!"

0o0

They reached the bottom of the stairs, moving in almost textbook formation, keeping each other covered and systematically clearing each area as they moved through. Since the evacuation order had been given – on top of the bypass order that was already in effect – the lower levels of the hospital were deserted and eerie.

Their footfalls echoed on the polished concrete floors, sending out a clear signal that they were coming to anyone waiting around a dark corner. It was unfortunate, but they couldn't help it now – not while Morgan was in trouble.

They fanned out as the walkway widened, Rossi and Spencer taking point while Hotch and Emily checked doors behind them as they went. Ordinarily he would have kept to the back and let the others take the lead, but Hotch was still limping and Emily had given him a look that made it clear that their boss was to be kept between at least two other agents right now, just in case.

Spencer kept to the left of the corridor, with the best line of sight, so he was the first one to see the end of a leg sticking out of the elevator doors. Given that the lift came out on a raised loading platform, the leg was roughly at eye-height.

Four of the five Secret Service agents they had been speaking with upstairs were slumped or sprawled in the base of the elevator car, bloodstains and bullet holes decorating the back wall. The door, running on its automatic program, kept bouncing against the leg of one of the agents, trying to close.

Emily stooped to check their pulses, but shook her head.

"What the hell?" Rossi asked, staring at the damage to the wall opposite the elevator. "Looks like something hit that pretty hard."

Hard enough to crack the concrete, even. A bomb? But there was no burn pattern, and surely they would have heard something like that…

"Prentiss," said Spencer, motioning at two trails of footprints leading away from the elevator and deeper into the hospital's loading bay.

"Someone made it out of there?" Emily asked, astonished.

"They left the fifth guy upstairs," Hotch recalled. "Who else was with them?"

Spencer felt his heart clench in his chest. The second pair of prints looked like a woman's boots.

Oh God. He felt his chest constrict. Grace.

0o0

All she could really hear on the radio now were sirens and engine noise, and the occasional sound of Derek cursing. She told herself that he needed her calm, that this couldn't be happening, that her best friend wasn't driving an enormous bomb through Manhattan, but none of it helped. She stared at the marker on the map that represented the ambulance's position.

Go faster! She thought, desperately trying to will it on. Go faster and then get out!

"Garcia, how am I doin'?" he asked.

"How's he doing?"

Bartleby, who had an eye on the satellite position while Garcia navigated, frowned.

"One minute, fifty seconds."

"Why does it always have to be you?" she demanded. "Why do you always have to do this?"

0o0

The team were running along one of the endless winding corridors in the hospital basement, following the trail of footprints, when they heard a burst of gunfire close at hand.

"Put down your weapon!" Grace shouted, somewhere up ahead. "Put it down! Now!"

Oh God.

There were two shots in quick succession, and then – terrifyingly – nothing. Spencer stumbled.

Grace…

His heart was hammering in his chest. He told himself she would be fine; she was unstoppable.

Moving as one, they strafed around the corner, tensing as a lone figure about twenty feet away span, levelling a gun at them. She lowered it as soon as she saw them, relaxing her stance. Spencer closed his eyes briefly, grateful to see her upright and whole.

"Pearce!" Hotch shouted.

A few feet behind her, the bomber lay sprawled on the ground, two bullet holes above his heart, sightless eyes staring up at the ceiling. She held up his gun as they came level with her, putting her own back in her holster.

"He unloaded his gun after the ambulance – I think Morgan drove it out of here," she told them, an unfamiliar darkness in her eyes. It was strange and almost violent, and put Spencer immediately on edge. "I didn't know if he had any bullets left. He raised his gun –"

"Alright – it's alright," Hotch said, taking the weapon from her.

"Why didn't you call it in?" Rossi asked.

"My radio stopped working," she explained, her hand instantly going to it. "Couldn't get through."

The movement had pulled her shirt taut over her left arm, where a rich bloom of crimson was spreading. Spencer's breath caught in his throat.

"You've been hit," Emily gasped, reaching out towards it.

Grace peered down at the wound, still mostly obscured by the ragged edges of her shirt.

"Huh," she said, looking perplexed. "Look at that… Ow."

Grace swallowed, hard, and suddenly she was the impossible, bemusing woman he knew and – what, exactly? He pushed the thought away, reluctant to finish his own sentence. Instead, Spencer helped Emily prise the torn fabric back – it was already sticking to the flesh of her arm. She winced, sucking air through her teeth.

"That's nasty," Emily grimaced.

"Looks like a pretty deep scratch," he said, trying to pretend his heart was beating at a sensible rhythm. "Good job we're in a hospital."

"I'm doing a heck of a lot better than the others," she said, slowly. "I was lucky they shoved me to the back…"

"His phone's shot," said Rossi, picking it up.

It had fallen a few feet away from him and was broken beyond repair. The screen was shattered and warped, one or two buttons were hanging out, connected only by wires.

"Yeah, I think he stamped on it," said Grace, grimacing again. "Will the bomb still go off?"

"If it's already armed, yes," Hotch said, frowning.

Spencer took the cell phone as Rossi and Hotch started shouting at Garcia to find out what was going on with Morgan and the ambulance, and Emily led Grace towards the stairs. He turned it over in his hands: although the screen was cracked, the bottom half looked more like it had been melted than trod upon. Several layers of plastic had laminated and fused.

He licked his lips, thinking about the large dent in the wall opposite the elevator where the unsub had shot at Grace and the unfortunate Secret Service agents.

"He stamped on it?" he asked, walking a little way behind the girls.

"Must've," said Grace. "I mean, look at it."

Spencer watched them start up the stairs to the loading bay, thoughtfully. "Must have…"

"Morgan's driving the ambulance towards the nearest park!" Rossi shouted, catching up with them.

They all froze, cognisant of the fragility of their friend's position.

"How long until the signal stops being blocked?" Grace asked, urgently.

"Less than a minute."

0o0

"Derek, you don't have much time, please be smart about this!" Penelope pleaded.

He didn't answer and she guessed he was focussing on keeping on the road. The electronic alarm Lisa had set went off, making both women jump.

"The signal's coming back on line!"

"Thirty seconds to full coverage," said Lisa.

There wasn't anything they could do now, but watch and wait. And shout at Derek.

"Derek, drive to the opening and then get the hell out!"

"There's somethin' I really want you to know, Garcia."

Now? Right now?

"Twenty seconds!"

"Save it, just get out!" she snapped.

"No, no, no – I'm not quite there yet."

"Ten."

"Morgan!"

"Just listen to me."

"Nine."

"Morgan, please!"

"Eight."

"You know what you are, Garcia?"

"Seven." Lisa winced. "We just lost tracking…"

"Morgan!" Penelope pleaded.

The explosion was so fierce that it rattled the equipment in the Command Post, nearly twenty blocks away. Lisa cursed under her breath, but Penelope wasn't quite ready to give up just yet.

She would never be ready.

"Derek?" she asked, fighting panic.

The radio didn't even crackle. All there was, was silence. Penelope felt her heart begin to break.

"Garcia?"

She let out a strangled noise, somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

"I'll tell you what you are to me. You're my God given solace."

He sounded shaky and out of breath, but definitely alive. She was going to kill him when he got back to Command.

"Woman, you promise me one thing – whatever happens, don't you ever stop talkin' to me."

She rubbed a tear off her face with her hand and sniffed.

"I can't right now, 'cause I'm mad at you," she told him.

"I can wait."

Annoyed, elated, relieved and exhausted, Penelope took the earpiece out and threw it at her keyboard.

She was going to kill him.

0o0

He heard the words, but they didn't register at first – like he'd only imagined them – but then the surgeon was patting him on the shoulder and the orderlies were filing out of the room, giving him some space.

"I'm so sorry…"

He recognised professional courtesy when he heard it.

The operating table, with its dismal contents, was in the centre of the room, still lit by the floodlights. One of those vast blue paper towels was covering it.

Covering her.

Aaron waited until they were gone before approaching it. He could see Kate's hair, still bloodied and dirty from the blast. Steeling himself, he lifted the part that was covering her face. Empty eyes stared back up at him, their spark well and truly extinguished.

He had thought, if they could only get her to a hospital she would have been in with a fighting chance.

Aaron dropped the sheet back into place, feeling hollow and sick. He and Kate had been friends for a long time; this was not how that friendship should have ended.

Her hand, pale and limp, had flopped off of the side of the table and hung, exposed, beyond the towel. He took it, trying to ignore how cold it was, and gave it one last squeeze before gently tucking it back beneath the cover.

He turned away, unable to look anymore.

0o0

Spencer found her in a dark corner of the bar, nursing a whiskey.

He watched her for a moment, the low light turning her hair to burnished gold, a forlorn, faraway look in her eyes. She looked beautiful and sad, like something out of a Greek ode or Renaissance painting. Spencer frowned to himself, aware that the crush he had been harbouring for his friend was teetering dangerously on the brink of something much deeper and infinitely more dangerous, and that this would not work out well in the long run.

It frightened him.

In the corner, Grace finished her drink, wincing as the wound in her arm pulled. She didn't make any effort to move, instead settling back in her seat, partially obscured from the rest of the room.

The barman, who had noticed him lurking, gave him a questioning look.

"Uh – a whiskey and a brandy, please."

He carried the drinks over, dropping the whiskey in front of his friend, trying not to stare at her.

"Hey."

She gave him a brief, weary smile. "Thanks."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, gazing out of the window into the dark New York street.

"You know," Grace said, after a while. "When I was first seconded to the Major Incident Unit all those years ago, I looked at Kate Joyner and I thought, 'Now, that's a copper'. I thought, 'Couple of years from now, that's going to be me'." She sighed heavily, picking up her whiskey. "No one deserves to go out like that."

Spencer shook his head, aware that there wasn't much he could say.

"How's Hotch?" she asked.

"Not great," he said, and she nodded.

"God, what a bloody awful night," she remarked, rubbing her forehead.

She looked so lost and so completely exhausted that he slid around the table, taking the seat beside her, and appropriated her hand. Grace immediately tucked herself into his side like she belonged there, giving his arm a welcoming squeeze.

"I'm ever so pleased it wasn't you in that car," she said, softly. "Rubbish as that sounds."

Spencer swallowed, enjoying the feel of the body pressed against his ribs far more than was proper.

"The feeling is mutual," he told her, quietly. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Oh, you'd get along," she insisted.

He licked his lips, trying not to think too hard about how good she smelled. "I don't know… Maybe."

"Hah."

Grace was warm and comfortable, and Spencer rested his head against hers, revelling guiltily in her proximity. He wondered if she would mind if they stayed like this until the bartender kicked them out, nestled together in a dark corner of the bar, a little bit closer than purely platonic friends had any right to be – and then felt like a bit of a traitor to think it.

She wasn't just a bad influence; she was a threat to his continuing sanity.

"Kate Joyner," she said, clearing her throat. Her voice was steady, but thicker than usual.

Taking her cue, he picked up the last of his brandy and lifted it in a post mortem salute.

"A fine copper, an extremely clever woman and a very good person," she reeled off, quietly.

Spencer clinked his glass with hers and they both drank to Joyner's memory. He didn't move his arm from where it was resting on her leg; he wasn't sure he could move it.

Grace smiled, painfully: "And an excellent judge of tea."

He put the glass down, frowning. "If we're toasting Kate Joyner's memory, shouldn't we be doing it with tea?" he asked, in all seriousness.

Grace snorted. "Actually, they don't serve it at the bar," she admitted. "I asked."

"Of course you did," he chuckled, rubbing his thumb along the delicate part of her wrist as her hand slipped back into his.

It occurred to him that he had some as part of the complimentary refreshments in his room. Suspecting that Grace would already have gone through all of hers, he pointed this out.

"That is, if you wanted some company," he added, trusting her to see this as an offer from a friend, rather than an ill-timed come-on – that hadn't been his intention at all.

To his utter and immense surprise, Grace pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, stealing all the thoughts right out of his head.

"You really are a peach, Spencer."

0o0

"I don't know, we're gonna get caught…"

"Come on kid, we're cops."

He held up the lighter.

"Smoking in a hospital is a federal offence," Agent Prentiss told them, leaning nonchalantly in the doorway.

The detectives turned to look at her, sheepishly, like naughty schoolboys. Detective Brustin took one look at her and handed the lighter back to his friend.

"You're on your own, kid."

Great, thought Cooper, sardonically. Some partner you are.

He made a swift exit, but not without a smile. A night like the last one had a way of smoothing disagreements over. Prentiss looked around, nodding at the balloons, get well cards, flowers and teddy bears adorning every surface.

"So, I see the wife and kids came for a visit," she observed and then grinned, wickedly. "Have you told them you started smoking again?"

"Gimme a break," Cooper complained, half-heartedly. "I just got shot."

She laughed.

"And now I'm standin' in front of a beautiful woman in this – ridiculous garb, with an IV and a catheter connected to my skidedypop."

Prentiss snorted.

"You could have told me you were comin'."

"Yeah – I wasn't going to, and then… I thought I'd drop in," she told him. "I'm on my way to the airport now."

"Yeah." He nodded, Brustin had told him as much. "Um – sorry to hear about Agent Joyner. And – Hotchner, is he okay?"

"Uh, he can't fly for a little bit – his ears are –" She grimaced. "But he's gonna be fine. " She glanced down at the envelope in her hands. "So – uh – I brought this for you. For you and your family. I'm told they are great seats."

"You didn't have to," said Cooper, feeling a little embarrassed.

"I know," she admitted. "I wanted to. Could just as easily have been me."

Cooper nodded. That feeling was hard to shake.

"Well, I'm glad it wasn't."

They shared a smile.

"Well, I – I got a plane to catch. Take care, Cooper."

"Yeah…"

He looked down at the tickets she'd handed him, curious.

"Oh, whoa, oh," he exclaimed, and she turned back. "Mets tickets? Most people assume I'm a Yankees fan."

Prentiss grinned.

"I'm not most people."

"No," he murmured ruefully, as she vanished around the corner. "No, that girl is not…"

0o0

"Hey," someone exclaimed. "Uh-uh, uh-uh, uh."

Aaron turned to find Morgan grabbing his go-bag, looking stern.

"I'm your ride," he informed him.

"I thought Agent Davis was driving me," Aaron pointed out, eyeing the younger agent warily.

"She was," he admitted. "I had her reassigned."

"Don't you have something better to do?" Aaron asked, grumpily.

"Than to annoy you for three hours? Hell no."

There was a glint to Morgan's eyes that suggested he wasn't going to win this argument, so he gave up.

"Give me the keys."

"Not a chance, Hotch."

Aaron rolled his eyes. "Let's go."

He sighed and started limping up the street, his junior agent keeping perfect step with him. He was a good man, and a good friend, Aaron reflected. He deserved to know.

"Quantico's requested you transfer to run the New York office," he told him, earning him an almost comical double-take.

"Hotch, they haven't even buried her yet," he said, staggered.

"We're at war," said Aaron, grimly. "Things change."

Morgan appeared to think about this. "Don't I need your recommendation?"

He stopped a little way from the car when Aaron didn't answer. "You didn't give it, did you?"

Aaron sighed. He really had wanted to get a bit more sleep and a bit less pain before having this conversation.

"Your actions, as incredibly brave as they were, were still the actions of an agent who doesn't really trust anyone," he explained.

Morgan gave him a searching look, unhappy. "Hotch, I did it for this team…"

"My opinion doesn't matter," he said, abruptly. "Job's yours if you want it."

But I'd rather you stayed on my team, he thought. Matured a bit more, learned how to have faith in people. Or am I just being selfish?

Apart from Jack (and Haley, still, even after the divorce), the team meant everything to him. After losing Kate in so brutal a fashion he wasn't sure he could cope with any of the current members of the BAU moving on. Not yet.

"Hotch," said Morgan, seriously. "Your opinion matters to me."

He frowned. "My life matters to me," he told him, simply. "I have, and always will, entrust you with it." He paused, letting his words sink in. "Would you do the same for me?"

Morgan didn't answer, which came as no surprise to Aaron. He did, however, insist on driving the whole way home, talking disjointedly about sports and music. By the time they pulled up outside Aaron's apartment, three and a half hours later, he was ready to kill him.

Still…

He leaned into the window from the sidewalk.

"Thanks."

"No problem, man," said Morgan, affably. "Ain't that what family's for?"

0o0o0o0

Full blame for the title goes equally to Steve Anatai and my other half, who said it the first time I watched this ep and now I can't unthink it. Eternal thanks, as ever, to MuggleCreator, gossamermouse101, xenocanaan, Evanescencefan97 and LeopardFeather – you guys keep me going and challenge me to be a better and more regular writer. This wouldn't be nearly as much fun without you lovely people! Mwah!

Also to Mina, Karelin and Apolline, for their frequent likes on Facebook and helping me out of that plothole ;) As well as JC, Bones and Clare, who regularly have various parts of each fic thrust under their noses and asked if it makes any sense :)

The next instalment of the Moments of Grace series, Before I Sleep, will be coming to a screen near you in June. If you want to be sure of catching it (and if you haven't already), be sure to hit the 'Follow Author' button at the bottom of the screen. And if you're bored of waiting you can always check out my other stories (largely Harry Potter related) by following the link with my name in it above :D

Also, I have my own site now, where you can find out about all the 'proper' writing I do – laurenknixon (there's a dot here but the site doesn't like it) com (there should be a mad woman with purple hair on the home page). There you can subscribe to my reasonably frequent newsletter to find out updates and blog posts :D

Love and Pickles,

Parlanchina xx