Disclaimer: The concept, canon, and canon characters belong to Forever creator Matt Miller and Warner Bros. Studios. All other characters, the plot for the story, and Henry's flashbacks are my own creation. I have posted my story here, and I don't profit from it. (Translation: I don't own Forever, but I still want it back.)

Author's Note: This story picks up two months after the last few minutes of 1x22. There are mild references for every episode that's aired. It is a mini-case fic. I hope that you will enjoy it.

Chapter 1

Jo couldn't believe that she was doing this. It had been the first time in years since she had gone swimming. The continuing tension that she had felt over the past few months, however, proved that she needed a different way to unwind other than TV and alcohol. This had been the first thing that had popped in her head.

She followed the hallway to the indoor pool. As she strolled down the concrete poolside, she noticed that the building was mostly quiet. A lone man was leisurely swimming a lap in the water. Two more men, engrossed in their conversation, stood beside the pool's deep end.

She walked around the men and placed her duffle bag a few feet away from them. She removed the hairband that created her ponytail, twisted her hair into a bun, and rewound the band around the bunched hair.

Behind her, a familiar voice grunted. "This is much better than you adding yourself to the mixture of either of the two rivers which border our fine borough."

"The use of a clear swimming pool cannot replicate the conditions of the river. Chemical contaminants from the streets, sediment runoff from further upstream, and any algal blooms or gasoline floating on the surface all affect the visibility of any object in or under the water. People are generally more buoyant in brackish water, therefore influencing their ability to stay underwater for any length of time. As for the currents and undercurrents…"

"Fair point. But, do you remember what happened last time you tried to dive into the river? About half of NYPD came to arrest you!"

"It was one officer! And I had the same amount of clothes on that I do now!"

As the men argued, Jo wondered how Henry and Abe knew that she would be here. She had never said anything about it. She didn't even know that she was doing this until after she had woken up this morning. She suddenly remembered that this was one of the few public indoor pools in the city that had a recreational pool open at this time in the morning. She immediately chided herself for being suspicious of the two men.

Maybe she should leave; she didn't want either of them to notice her. Another second of their argument convinced her to stay. Henry was conducting an experiment. As soon as he got the results that he needed, he would leave, and she would have the pool all to herself.

She took her cell phone out of her pocket and checked it for any missed calls and messages. So far, neither Mike nor Lt. Reece had called her. Then again, Mike had a reason to avoid the phone. He, Karen, and their two sons were moving into a new house, and Karen had convinced Mike to spend his free time packing. As she placed her phone into her bag, Jo chuckled at the memory of Mike's crankiness; he had to give up his evening yoga classes to please Karen.

"You can't get out of this; the fee's already paid. Besides, you can get some use out of the swim trunks that everyone bought for you at Christmas."

Jo heard Henry sigh. "They were a well-intentioned gift at my expense…"

She almost smiled at Abe's paternal nature toward Henry. To the outside world, Abe was a concerned father scolding his rebellious adult son. She, however, knew the true nature of their relationship. Three months ago, Henry had told her that he was immortal, that he had been alive for 235 years, and that Abe was his adopted son. Jo immediately believed him. Immortality explained a lot about Henry, including his lack of self-preservation when confronting suspects and his unorthodox methods for solving a case. As she had listened to the details of his life, she had felt as though she was watching a magician reveal his secrets to his assistant.

She glanced down at the floor near her bag. An olive-green sack sat next to hers. She wrinkled her eyebrows, bent over, and studied it. It looked nothing like the ones that she had seen. If anything, it looked as though someone had attached a duffle bag handle onto a very long draw-string bag. Soft ticks from inside the bag told her that it was Henry's.

As she straightened her posture and paced to calm her nerves, her mind drifted to the past three months. So far, she and Henry had been trying to act as though nothing had happened on that fateful day in early May. Like a magician's assistant, however, she now could spot his deviations from the truth and his misdirection every time that they worked a case. Ordinarily, it wouldn't bother her. When she had married Sean, she had learned how to keep people from knowing much about him in order to protect him from the criminals whom he had prosecuted. Sean's and her professional lives had never crossed, and that separation made it easier to keep their life together a secret.

As for Henry's and her professional lives, it was much different. They had been working together constantly since the fatal train crash that brought them together nine months ago. Henry's presence in the field meant that there was a chance that his secret would be exposed during an investigation. One misstep from either person could lead to an internal affairs investigation—and to a lot of questions that neither of them could answer truthfully.

Because of that, Jo could feel herself buckling under the weight of the knowledge of Henry's immortality, and her frustrations were coming out while they were in the field. After one case in which Henry had gone undercover because NYPD couldn't talk to a suspect, she had called him "stiff and formal" in front of their colleagues. In another instance, she had snapped at him and criticized his "patronizing" attitude in front of a witness.

The most recent case was a close call. Their suspect had taken Henry hostage and had used him as a human shield. Jo refused to fire her gun for fear of hitting Henry. As a result, Lt. Reece gave her two options: a return to the gun range for more practice or several sessions with Dr. Lewis Farber to discuss what had happened and why. Knowing that Dr. Farber—Adam—was still suffering from locked-in syndrome, Jo had chosen the former to avoid attracting further attention to herself and to Henry. As she had left Lt. Reece's office, Jo had realized that it was only a matter of time before she accidently exposed Henry's immortality to the world.

She sighed as she continued pacing. In a way, she envied Abe and Abigail; they both had managed to keep Henry's secret throughout their lives with him. Abe had grown up thinking that Henry's immortality was relatively normal, and he had been a near constant in his father's life in spite of the complications of the condition. As for Abigail, she had temporarily separated herself from Henry in order to reassess their relationship, but she had proven her willingness to keep his immortality a secret by taking it with her to her grave.

Jo didn't have Abe's or Abigail's options of coping with the implications of Henry's immortality. Nor did she have the more normal ways of dealing with a development like this. She couldn't take a vacation; she had used all of her vacation time to bury Sean and to recover from the gunshot wound that she had suffered while on the roof of Grand Central Station. Telling Henry to stay off the cases was impossible. Mike had tried once, and Henry had continued investigating the case. She could ask for another medical examiner to work some of her cases, but Henry would immediately know her motive. She couldn't talk to anyone else except for Abe; she would have her sanity questioned. She wondered if she needed to end her and Henry's partnership until she could clear her mind and decide what she wanted to do next.

Most people would had exercised that last option long before now. One look at the scar near her right shoulder this morning had reminded her of why she hadn't. She vaguely remembered that she and Henry had been through so much during the nine months before his revelation. He and Abe were the only people whom she could discuss her experiences with. That, however, wasn't a strong enough basis to continue their partnership—or to adequately protect his secret.

The pool's glistening water caught her eye. If she wanted to swim, she couldn't keep her mind on her current train of thought. She suddenly felt a little awkward about changing in front of Henry. No matter what she thought of him at the moment, he was her partner, and this was something that should be done in private.

Fortunately, Henry's focus on his story and Abe's body provided her with the cover that she needed. She quickly removed her blue blouse and her black dress pants, revealing a black one-piece swimsuit. She folded her clothes and placed them in her duffle bag.

As she straightened herself, she heard Henry's voice trailed off. Maybe he had thought that Abe had a point and that it was time to start his experiment. She turned around and looked at him. He blinked as a smile spread on his face. "Good morning, Detective. I'm sorry; I was lost in thought."

She could feel her cheeks warm. Henry had the same look on his face as he had had when she had worn her black dress into the morgue about four months ago. To stop the blush, she averted her eyes to Abe.

Abe turned to her. "Hey, Jo! What are you doing here?"

"I needed to get out of the house this morning." Her eyes darted from son to father before she glanced down at the ground. She hoped that neither of them would catch her lie.

"What do you mean…?" Before Abe could finish his question, his cell phone rang. He pulled it out and looked curiously at the number. "I got to take this." He tapped the screen and walked toward the entrance.

Jo looked at Henry. "The case?"

He glanced down toward the ground for a moment. "Given the small amount of water in the lungs and the discrepancy between the witness' statement and the amount of rigor mortis in the victim's body, I have some questions about what had happened, and I hope that this will clear them up."

She nodded as she placed his observations into context. Early yesterday morning, Rodney Ginsberg, an art insurer, had been found floating face up in a shallow portion of the East River. The only witness, Hunter Downey, had told them and Mike that he had found Rodney in the river and that Rodney was clutching something, possibly a key, in his hand. Yet, Henry's visual autopsy had revealed that there was nothing there at his time of death, and CSU didn't find anything unusual in or near the river.

The lilt of Henry's voice pulled Jo out of her memory. "I know that it's difficult to deal with…"

She knew what he wanted to discuss. "I'll survive." She instantly regretted her curt tone.

They stood in silence, and Jo listened to the waves. She wished that she knew what to talk about with him. When she and Mike had become partners, she had quickly learned everything about him. With Henry, though, she felt like what she had learned was the tip of the iceberg—the size of Mount Everest. It made her wonder who the man behind the immortal was.

Jo suddenly felt a bump, and she almost fell into Henry. "Hey!" She turned to see the offender. Surprisingly, the pool's lone occupant walked away from them.

"Are you okay?"

She looked at Henry and nodded. He quickly examined her and then caught up to the man. "Excuse me, but I believe that you owe her an apology."

"I don't speak to anyone of her station." Jo wanted to punch Henry's fellow Brit for that comment.

Henry matched the man's steps. "During their war with us, the Americans had declared that they would establish a society void of the vestiges of feudalism and mercantilism. Whether they had lived up to their ideals is a topic for another discussion." The man slowed to a stop. "That, however, does not give gentlemen the right to exercise ill manners toward any member of the fairer sex."

The man spun around and snatched Henry's right wrist. Henry stood transfixed by the man's piercing blue eyes. Jo felt like she couldn't move either. "You seemed to have forgotten who you are. Maybe you should return home and remind yourself of your heritage." He quickly released Henry's arm and silently stormed off.

Henry headed back to Jo. A couple of steps into his walk, Henry turned his head back to the man. "For someone who was quite insistent on your manners, he had seemed to have forgotten his." He unconsciously rubbed his right wrist as though a manacle had been enclosed around it just a few moments before.

Jo's heart raced. How much does he know about Henry? "Do you suppose…?"

"I don't believe so. I had asked Abe to drive me to the river this morning, and he had driven me here instead. When we had arrived, he was already here." His eyes travelled to the pool. "Which reminds me…" With that, he sat down on the edge, swung his legs into the water, and slid in.

"Henry!" Immortal or not, she wasn't going to watch him die. Her fears abated when he suddenly bobbed up out of the water and turned to face her.

"It looks like Jo found a way to convince you to get into the water." A smiling Abe joined them.

Jo's curiosity about Abe's mysterious caller got the better of her. "Who called you?"

"Jerry, my locksmith friend. He has this old box that he wants to me to look at." Abe looked at his father, who had drawn himself up onto the edge and had crossed his arms in front of him. "Do you mind finding another way to work this morning?"

"I'll be fine. One piece of advice, though: if the box is a piece of evidence, take it to the precinct. If you don't, you'll get two earfuls, one of which from me." Abe groaned. "Do you remember what happened the last time that you and Jerry had handled evidence?"

"That…" Abe grunted. "Well, I'd better get going." He turned to leave them. "Jo." She nodded, and he waved as he left.

The second that Abe disappeared through the entrance, Jo turned to Henry. "So, how are you going to test your theory about Rodney's drowning?"

"A key is in my bag. It's small enough to mimic the object that he was holding before his death." He unfolded his arms and placed them on the deck.

"I'll get it." She opened the bag. She reached in and felt as though she needed to dive into it. She felt around, finding a towel, his Metro card, a summertime three-piece suit, socks, shoes, and his pocket watch. A second later, she found a pair of keys and pulled them out. "Which one?"

He took one and held it. She assumed that the other was his key to the antiques shop and slipped it back in the bag.

"Well, here goes." He took a deep breath and slipped underwater.

Jo dropped down to her bag and removed her phone. As she kept one eye on Henry, she set the timer on her phone and slipped it back in her bag.

She rose and watched him adjust his body to match the posture of Rodney's body. As Henry floated to the surface, Jo wondered if she was seeing what some of his first death had looked like.

A few seconds later, Henry surfaced and lowered his legs. As he straightened himself, she noticed that he still had the key in his hand. He swam to the edge using his free hand. Once at the pool's side, he placed the key on the deck and held on the edge.

Jo wrinkled her eyebrows. It looked as though Henry was having a flashback. He pulled one hand off the edge and rubbed his face almost like he was trying to wipe the image out of his mind.

"Do I need to call Abe?"

Henry blinked several times and slowly looked up at her. "I'll be fine." To prove his point, he hoisted himself over the edge and stood on the poolside. "Someone had taken the object from Rodney's hand before he was killed and thrown into the river."

She rose to meet him. "How do you know that?" She already knew how Henry had realized that Rodney was murdered.

He bent over and picked up the key. "A rare condition called cadaveric spasm. It is typically brought on by injury, sudden immersion in cold water, or intense emotion, and it disappears when regular rigor mortis sets in. Victims are usually found with objects, such as pieces of cloth or vegetation from a body of water, in their hands."

"Like what Hunter thought he had seen when he had discovered Rodney's body."

"Rodney's hands were relaxed, suggesting that he had dropped the object either at the moment of death or 36 hours after rigor mortis ended."

"Since we can't find what he was carrying and it's been less than 36 hours since Rodney's died…"

"Exactly."

Jo nodded. "Thanks." She wished that she knew what else to say.

Henry turned his attention back to his bag. He blinked several times and shook his head as he opened the bag and slipped the key into it.

She hated to leave him if he was feeling ill. Only she, Abe, and Adam knew of Henry's condition, and anyone else's efforts to help him might end in disaster for him and Abe. Yet, Henry was certain that he was well enough for her to leave him alone.

Knowing that he was stubborn, she decided to go for her swim. She walked around the pool to the stairs, placed her hand on the rail, and stepped into the water. The second that her other foot was submerged, she froze. She could hear both her assailant's comments and the voice of Aaron Brown's wife telling her about "a second chance" and how someone would "believed when no one else would. Hard to find that in this world".

At that moment, her long-buried memories flooded her mind. Both parents working to keep food on the table. Her father teaching her some of the tools of his trade without her knowing the truth. Everything that she had seen on her way to the bodega or to school. The bullying that she had received during her only semester at the private school that she attended on scholarship. Her unsuccessful attempt to hide her love of history, geography, and literature so she could fit in with the popular girls. Learning of her father's criminal activities from a next-door neighbor who had heard about them. Confronting her father about the crimes that he had committed. Changing her major from history to pre-law when she had witnessed her childhood friend's murder and the police's indifference to the case. Her father practically disowning her the day that she received her uniform and badge. The ridicule, harassment, and verbal abuse that she endured from her neighbors when she became an officer. Shutting down her emotions after three months on the force because she had felt overwhelmed by the continuing surge of crime and suffering that she had seen daily. Sean's death and feeling like the only person to accept her fully had been taken away from her forever.

As her memories flashed before her, she had the feeling that, if remixed and slightly revised, her story also belonged to someone else—like Henry.

Jo's mind then went blank, and she felt like she couldn't focus on anything. All that she knew was that she remained motionless.

"Jo, are you alright?"

Jo blinked several times to clear the fog of her mind. She slowly turned her head toward the voice. Henry had joined her in the pool and was now giving her a concerned look.

"I'll be fine." She finished her descent down the stairs and glided into the water. A few seconds later, she automatically began swimming like she had never stopped. She took several strokes toward the deep end. Her mind was still unfocused, but she felt that each stroke helped to clear the fog even more.

When she reached the halfway point, she felt additional waves lapping against her body. She slowed down and saw Henry swimming beside her. With each stroke, he kept an eye on her, almost as if he was scared that something would happen to her if he didn't.

She stopped and sculled the water. When was the last time that he acted like this?

Suddenly, she saw flashes of memories again. Offering his condolences for her loss of Sean when they had first met. Saving her life when Hans Koehler threw aconite on her hand. Getting her away from Koehler's garage when his story started to affect her. Visiting her in the hospital the day after Koehler shot her. Listening to her after she fatally shot Mark Bentley. Listening to her memory of being bullied. Offering to be shot instead of her when they confronted Morris in Manorville. Persistently investigating the murder of Sean's informant Aaron Brown. Her vague memory of refusing Henry's request to stop drinking and her clear memory of waking up on his sofa—with Abe looking at her like a kid on Christmas morning and Henry right behind him to keep his son from bothering her. Henry's plan to stop Detective Hugh Dunn from killing her. Henry running to her to see if she was alive and okay after she had crashed the car into the emergency barrier. Showing up at her house with hot chocolate. Suddenly running toward an unseen threat when they found Xavier. The tearful look on his face after he had told her that Adam had threatened to kill her if she intercepted the pugio.

"You're my friend, my partner, and someone I deeply care about."

Tears threatened to form in her eyes. How could I had forgotten all that over the past three months? She looked down at the pool's bottom and bit her lower lip. She wished that she had never treated him the way that she had. She needed some way to begin to make it up to him.

She began to feel the fog come back. She leaned over and took a couple of more strokes to stop it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him matching her strokes.

"When did you learn to swim?"

She stopped again and stared at him. Out of all the questions…

"My first semester of college." He stopped and sculled the water. "My neighborhood didn't have a pool, so I had never learned to swim. My first week of college, I walked around campus to see what else was there. I entered the indoor swimming pool. It was the most fascinating thing that I had ever seen." She smiled at the memory. "I stepped foot into the pool, and I quickly realized that I needed to learn how to swim. From that day until the day I stopped, I was in the pool every chance I got."

"You stopped because of Sean."

Her eyes widened at his deduction, but she nodded. "Because of our cases, it was difficult to find time for each other. So, I stopped my early morning swims, and he stopped his weekly pool games."

For a moment, his mind went back to his past. "When I was a child, I was always swimming in the pond on our estate. That is, if I wasn't in a tree or reading."

Jo cocked her head and looked curiously at him. Henry had never mentioned his childhood before. The most that she had known about that period of his life was that he was born on September 19, 1779, in London, that his family owned a well-known shipping company, and that they were wealthy enough to live what could be called an upper-middle class lifestyle. And she had learned that when he had told her about his immortality.

Something, however, had changed within the last few minutes. In addition to voluntarily giving her more details about his life, his voice was much more lighthearted than usual. Jo concluded that Henry must had been affected by whatever had happened to him while he was in the pool earlier.

The fog in her mind threatened to return. She felt that listening to Henry would be her way out of it. She smiled as she anticipated his continuation.

He quickly yielded to her unspoken suggestion. "I stopped when I had discovered that I was becoming quite attracted to the members of the opposite sex."

A laugh almost escaped from her. "Wait a minute! You're telling me that you gave up swimming for girls?!"

He smiled. "With the courtship rituals of dances and visits to a young lady's home, it became rather difficult to continue one of my favorite recreations. I maintained my ability to swim in case Father had convinced me to join him on one of his business trips, but I had stopped swimming recreationally at that time."

"What about with Abigail and Abe?"

"Both of them had a natural affinity for the water. When our schedules had permitted us, we went every chance that we had."

She was sure that he and Abe didn't swim recreationally now. "When did you stop?"

"1958, after we had spent six months in Hawaii."

Jo nodded. That move was necessitated because a PFC Hemecker had recognized Henry when he was walking through the park in New York in the fall of 1957.

To keep herself from being overwhelmed by the fog in her mind again, she remembered how his story began. "You mentioned tree climbing. How…?" At that moment, Jo sensed that she was much calmer now than she had been during the past three months. Much calmer than she had been over the last couple of years, for that matter.

He chuckled. "I was quite an adventurous child…."

Her arms were growing tired. She leaned back so that she could float. She didn't know what either of them were feeling right now, but she liked it. As the back of her head touched the water, she smiled and began to listen to his story.

"I had never told Abe that story. I didn't want to encourage him."

Jo straightened up so that she wouldn't sink as a result of her laughter. She looked at Henry. He had a huge grin on his face as he relished telling her another one of his childhood misadventures. This time, he had told her about the time that he had startled his mother and his nursemaid when he had climbed out onto a limb and had dropped straight into the pond below. Jo could see why Henry had refused to mention that one to his rambunctious son.

Since Henry's question, they had gone wherever their rivers of memories had taken them. Henry told her about summers visiting his maternal grandparents' estate in Oxfordshire, schoolboy pranks both at his expense and of his own creation, and abolitionist meetings, and his detailed descriptions made her feel like she was there with him. In turn, Jo told him about trips to the bodega, pick-up games of baseball and basketball, and slumber parties with her childhood friend. When the rivers turned, Henry and Jo talked about the likes of George Gershwin's childhood accidents that required medical attention and Mr. Mendoza's empanadas. At one point, they both were amazed to learn that he had dug her maternal grandmother's grave. Each of their memories had led to a new pleasant surprise.

Jo's heart now began to race, and she briefly averted her eyes. She was enjoying this, and she was delighted to have this moment in complete solitude. No one had dared to come into the area during their conversation. Furthermore, there were no security cameras to record this for posterity. It was as though they were meant to have this time together. The only thing that threatened to ruin it was a constant, faint ring.

Henry suddenly grew somber. "That sounds like your cell phone."

The ring instantly grew louder. "Nuts!" She was going to kill Mike—or Lucas—for interrupting them.

She started to swim to the shallow end of the pool when she noticed that Henry had already sprung out of the pool and was now kneeling next to their bags. Seeing that he had a plan, she swam to him.

"What?"

"Hold onto the edge. When I lift you, pull yourself up."

She did as he said. Henry never does anything normally. Then again, nothing in his life was normal.

He leaned over, and she felt him wrapping his arms around her. The second that he lifted her, his surprising strength almost pleasantly distracted her from her scramble up the wall. A couple of seconds later, she found herself standing next to him and looking deep into his brown eyes as he unwrapped his arms.

The annoying tone continued. She lunged for her duffle bag and pulled out her towel and her phone. She tapped the screen and checked it. No one had called her. Instead, her timer icon was blinking.

"Man! I don't believe it!"

"Believe what?"

Jo looked at Henry and flashed her phone. "I set my timer so that I could get breakfast before work." He gave her a confused look. "It's been going off for the last ten minutes."

He silently nodded and stepped back to his bag. With slumped shoulders and a frown, he reached into his bag.

As he pulled out his towel, his scar caught Jo's eye. She now knew why he rarely talked about himself. Why Nora and Bedlam had a profound effect on him 200 years later. Why Abigail's decision to leave him had deeply hurt him and why several cases and finding her letter were healing that pain. Why he had no self-preservation when he's a dangerous situation with others. Why he didn't want to see any more of his family and friends age and die. Why Abe's future death would cut Henry to the core. Why he was terrified of the thought of turning into Adam. Why his detailed descriptions seemed to be a recent development—if she could call 100 years recent. Why those who overlooked his quirks—like the Catholic priest who was his cellmate in Southwark Prison, Gloria Carlisle, Red Holland, Molly Dawes, the Urkesh royal family, and Valerie—meant so much to him. Why his high-fiving Lucas when they were kicked out of the nightclub had made her wonder "Who are you, and what did you do with Henry Morgan?" Why he had unconsciously dropped hints about his immortality and was willing to expose his secret to her since they had first met.

Whether Henry realized it or not, it wasn't death that he longed for. It was connection.

She watched him instinctively dry himself as she dried herself. She knew the feeling. Ever since Sean's death, Mike had been her only friend, and that was because of work. She had cut herself off from everyone, thinking that others wouldn't understand the deep pain that she had. For the most part, she was right. Henry, however, had been the first one to not only see her grief but also to know exactly what it was felt like. Maybe their ability to connect with each other was the real reason why their partnership started and why it had evolved into a friendship since then.

Honestly, she was missing that friendship over the past three months.

"You know." Henry looked over at her, draping his towel over his shoulders in the process. "We can continue this in the car."

The second that the words left her mouth, she hated the suggestion. The minutes that they had spent talking in the car and some free time at the end of cases weren't enough. She wished that they had more time together, like their dinner on his rooftop after their first month and a half of working together and the meal that they shared three months ago.

He smiled. "Would you like to get some coffee and breakfast?" To sweeten the deal, his stomach audibly growled.

She stifled her giggles because of the sound. "I would like that."

He picked up his bag and slung it over his right shoulder. For a moment, she could almost see him in his Army medic's uniform as he moved through World War II-era Europe. Or as Abigail placed Abe in his arms for the first time. Or when he had unsuccessfully tried to leave Abigail and Abe after Abigail's discovery of his immortality.

He rose his arm, sniffed himself, and lowered it. "I'll need a shower first. If I don't, Lucas would be questioning me about my whereabouts this morning."

Good idea. Mike would be doing the same thing to her. "I think that I had seen the showers when I came in." She picked up her duffle bag and slung it over her shoulder.

As she led him to the showers, the fog began to creep back into her mind. To keep it at bay, she let her mind wander back to the pool. Whatever had happened to them seemed to have drawn them closer together. She hoped that, when the fog finally cleared, their experience would be the start of something that would last.

Author's Note: For Jo's backstory, I used her question, "Is it me, or has college changed?" in "Memories of Murder" as the basis for her college education.