A/N: Hello, world! I know not many people are still doing much with Dead Like Me, but I came across this half-finished in my documents folder and decided it should be finished and see the light of day. Please note that the first few chapters are setting up for the rest of the story, so give it until at least chapter 4 and if by then I don't have you interested in reading, then c'est la vie. Reviews/concrit are always appreciated, and I hope you enjoy the story!

Disclaimer: Naturally, I don't own anything related to Dead Like Me. But I continue to mourn the untimely death (hmm, poor word choice?) of this fantastic show.

George sat in what would quickly become her usual spot, engrossed in her work. After Rube had finally gotten his promotion and the disastrous reign of Cameron, George had decided that if she had to be the boss, she might as well follow the example of the one who'd actually given a fuck. While things had been a bit tumultuous at first, to say the least, things for George and her crew had settled down nicely over the last few months- if you could call popping souls and standing witness to an endless cycle of death, death, and more death "nice."

It had taken three months, but Der Waffle Haus had finally reopened, bigger and tackier than before. Earlier that morning, George had entered and made a beeline for what used to be their usual table, claiming Rube's old seat in their booth for her own. She figured he'd appreciate the continuance of their traditional morning breakfast meetings at his favorite waffle joint.

Kiffany, stopping by to refill her coffee, smiled a greeting. "It's so good to see you back here. I'm glad that fire didn't drive away all my favorite regulars. Will the others be joining you too?"

"Are you kidding? You couldn't keep me away from your waffles, Kiffany my love," Mason beamed as he plopped down on the seat across from George, Daisy joining him somewhat more sedately while Roxy settled beside George.

"Still waiting for one more then? I'm surprised, usually Rube's the first one of you here," Kiffany noted as she poured coffee for the newcomers.

A slightly awkward silence descended upon the group before George cleared her throat. "Actually, he got a promotion and had to transfer to a new office, so it'll just be us now."

"But not to worry, Kiff! I'll take a banana bonanza and a side of extra extra extra crispy bacon. It's like he never left at all!" Mason winked.

Kiffany just shook her head at his antics. "And what can I get for the rest of you?" She took their orders and headed off to the kitchen to drop them off, leaving the four reapers to their morning chatter.

Except this morning there was a good bit less chatter than usual. "My goodness," Daisy said, finally breaking the silence, "you'd think someone had died or something. We've been just fine the last three months. Why should it be any different here? I know it was Rube's spot, but we've been getting by just fine. We'll manage, you'll see. Now, how are we doing on reaps today, Georgia?"

Interlacing her fingers and stretching her arms out in front of her, Georgia smirked. "You're not going to like it," she warned as she passed yellow sticky notes around, one each for Mason, Roxy and herself, and four for Daisy.

Mason chortled at Daisy's expression, a mix of horror and resignation. "Well so much for getting my nails done today. I'll see you at home, Georgia. The rest of you, till tomorrow," she said, finishing her coffee and sliding out of the booth.

After polishing off his Rube Special as he liked to think of it, Mason grabbed his jacket, threw down some cash and headed off for his own assignment, leaving Roxy and George to reflect over coffee.

Roxy watched George, who was lost in her own thoughts a million miles away, for a moment before resolutely deciding that someone would have to coax George back to earth.

"Hey kid, what's bothering you? I know you and Rube were sort of friends, and I know what happened with Cameron was all kinds of messed up, but you seemed to be doing ok before this."

George jumped a bit before shrugging sheepishly at the cop. "I don't know, I guess just being here without Rube really brought home that he's actually gone. And I'm supposed to somehow fill his shoes? How fucked up is that? I'm only marginally less of a fuck-up than MASON for fuck's sake. Plus, I've still got work at Happy Time, and Delores is talking about giving me a promotion to go with my new office, and, well, it just seems like someone up there has decided to screw with my life yet again and dump all kinds of responsibility I'm so not ready for in my lap."

Roxy just looked at her steadily. "No, you are ready for it. You're the only one who saw through that dick Cameron's bullshit. Rube taught you right, and you've been doing just fine since you got the job. And you know they love you over at that shithole you call a job. Quit worrying so much and you'll be fine. You don't have to be Rube, you just have to make sure all the reaping gets done as it should. Now if we're done with this little nauseating heart-to-heart, I've got to go bust some law-breaking balls. I'll see ya around kid."

George watched Roxy go with a thoughtful expression on her face. Could she really do Rube's job without being Rube? Well, maybe. Things had gone more or less smoothly since she'd gotten the job; it helped that her three reapers knew what they were doing and had been sufficiently frightened by everything that had gone wrong under Cameron's leadership. Although… she only had three reapers. And now that she thought about it, the reaping load had been unusually high lately. Shouldn't there have been a replacement for Rube/Cameron by now? Daisy had shown up almost immediately after Betty had, well, disappeared. She still wasn't sure what had happened to Betty, and figured there was a decent chance she never would. After settling the bill with Kiffany, George grabbed her coat and headed off to work.

The next morning, George padded downstairs in her bathrobe and slippers, still half asleep. She poured herself a cup of coffee, grabbed the non-descript envelope just inside her door, and collapsed on the couch, giving the caffeine time to work through her system. Finally starting to perk up, she pulled over the leather date book from the table and opened the daily list of reaps. She gingerly pulled the rubber bands off the book and placed them around her wrist, and smiled slightly, thinking Rube would forgive her for the minor theft of his book. The team still had their phones from Cameron, but George figured that sometimes technology just fucked things up. At least Rube's system had always been reliable.

As she copied in the names, places, and times of death into the notebook, Daisy flounced in with her own cup of coffee, makeup already on and hair styled and coiffed. George glanced up long enough to glare in her direction. While George didn't fully wake up until at least her second cup of coffee, once she was up- which sometimes required an act of God, or at least extreme encouraging from George- Daisy practically glowed in the mornings, fluttering around the house testing the effects of various lighting situations on her chosen ensemble and accessories. Sometimes Daisy's saccharine sweetness in the morning was enough to make George want to kill her. Or it would if Daisy wasn't already dead. And today was looking like one of those days.

"Did you see? The theater's doing an anniversary showing of my movie," Daisy mentioned, handing the local newspaper over for George's inspection before floating over to a plush chair and pulling out a nail file.

George glanced up, trying to gauge Daisy's reaction to the showing of Gone with the Wind. Deciding she didn't seem upset about it, she took the paper and skimmed the article. But the story below the fold caught her attention.

"Hey, wait a minute…"

The headline, "Three University Students Dead as a Result of Tragic Accident," sprawled across the lower half of the page, accompanied by a large photo of the remnants of a college classroom, smoke still curling in the air.

Daisy looked up from filing her nails. "Hmm?"

George read the rest of the article in confusion. "Three college kids died yesterday in an explosion in a science lab," she muttered distractedly.

"So?"

"So, explosions are our division. But we didn't have post-its for any of them," George said slowly.

Daisy shrugged, unconcerned. "Maybe Roxy or Mason had them."

George just raised her eyebrow at her. "Daisy, I write the post-its. I know what names were on them. I even have it right here."

She flipped to yesterday's page in Rube's datebook. "See? No C. Carmichael, M. Weston, or S. Spencer. They didn't have an appointment, and for all we know, their souls could still be trapped in their bodies. Or what's left of their bodies anyway. Maybe one of us should check…" she mused.

"Well, you're the boss. But I'd suggest sending Mason. He actually seems to enjoy the squishy ones," Daisy suggested with a shudder.

"You do know I was a squishy one, right?" Seeing Daisy's unapologetic shrug, George continued, "But that's not a bad suggestion. His reap is pretty close to the morgue. And he's been on his best behavior since the douche-bag-who-shall-not-be-named." Slipping the rubber bands back around the leather book, George stood to get ready for the day.

Forty-five minutes later, the gang gathered at their usual spot for George to hand out the usual yellow notes. Before Mason could high-tail it out of there for whatever nefarious plot he had planned this week, George grabbed his arm.

"I have a favor to ask, Mason," she began.

An unholy gleam lit up his eyes. "Oh reeeeeally. And what do I get out of it?"

"How about I don't tell Daisy about how you moaned her name while making out with the new blonde waitress? You're never going to win her over with that kind of shit you know."

Mason paled. "Um, right-o! Wait, you think I actually have a shot?" He leaned forward eagerly.

George smirked. "Not really, but stranger things have happened. She did like that you went to her play and didn't give her crap about it afterwards. She thought the carnation thing was cute."

Nodding thoughtfully, he pulled out a pen and wrote "Flowers" on the back of his post-it for the day. "Flowers. Right. I can do flowers. And chocolates. Girls like chocolates..."

Before he could get too carried away, George interrupted him. "Y'know, Daisy's had loads of guys chase after her with flowers and chocolates. She practically expects them from every male between 12 and 80. Why don't you just be yourself? Well, a slightly cleaner, less high version of yourself anyway. I think she likes that you're not like every other man she's been with."

Mason stared at her in disbelief. "I've bloody well been myself for the last six years and see where that's gotten me? Bloody nowhere, that's where. Although… she has been less of a bitch lately. Maybe she's finally appreciating my charms after the way Cameron treated her, ya think?"

George glanced at her watch and groaned. "Ok, focus Mason." She slid the paper over to him. "There were three kids killed yesterday in an explosion. They should've been our reaps, but they weren't on our list and none of us were there to reap 'em. I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but I was hoping that since you've got an appointment out near the morgue that you could swing by and just check to see if their souls are popped? I don't want to leave them trapped if they're still in there."

"You're not thinking something funny's going on, are you? They were probably just grabbed by someone in another division for personal reasons. Like Rube with his daughter," Mason protested.

George shook her head. "No, if that were the case, I'd still have been notified. I'd get the name and pass it on to Brian in Natural Causes or Gina in Circulatory. We've each got a list of people close to a reaper should their appointment show up on our schedule."

"What about Plague Division?" Mason asked.

George snorted in amusement. "Are you kidding? No one even remembers the last time the Plague folks actually had a reap in Seattle. And since they get so few reaps, they tend to stick around even longer than we do. None of them has family still around. They mostly volunteer to help out overworked divisions during high turnover periods since they've got so much time on their hands, the lucky bastards."

"Hmm. That is weird then, innit? Alright, I'll have a look and escort any souls still hanging around into the million watt great beyond," Mason promised, "but you're buying breakfast tomorrow."

George rolled her eyes. "Fine, whatever. And thanks. But I've got to go, or I'll be late for Happy Time. Stop by when you're done and let me know how things went at the morgue, ok? Maybe Daisy'll be around and you can try dazzling her with your charm or something."

Mason brightened. "Sure thing, Georgie."

The two headed out of Der Waffle Haus and split up, each off to start the day's work.