A/N My first work here, I hope you like it. A few things I should get out of the way before we begin. This will be a long work; I have some 65 chapters already completed or underway, so buckle up. Secondly, you will see cameos from other shows, which I hope you will enjoy.

If you are an author here on FF and you see something that looks like it might reflect your work, it's probably because I have been immersed in the stories here and the great work here has probably rubbed off on me. No plagiarism intended.

As always, the characters here are the creation of their respective rights holders, and the wonderful actors and actresses who bring them to life for us. To them we owe a vast debt of gratitude for the pleasure they bring us. No infringement of their rights is intended, but thank you for letting us play with them, just for a little while.

As always, feedback is very, very welcome. Review early and often

Pope meets Anastasia

Popes viewpoint

LAPD Chief of Police Will Pope was having a good start to the week. None of his officers had killed anyone over the weekend.

Even better, none had been killed, for which he was profoundly grateful. He hated officiating at funerals; he always struggled to tell the grieving families that their father, mother, husband or wife, son or daughter had died for something important. It felt like a lie, he could say the words, but he didn't believe them anymore.

At least right now there were no massive lawsuits hanging over the Department, the Mayor's office seemed happy with the Department's closure rate and most of the LAPD's key performance indices were up.

Pope stared at the stack of paperwork sitting in his in tray and sighed, he hated it, always had, but it needed to be done, even though he almost wished for something to happen to distract him from it. Hell, even Major Crimes and Force Investigation were on almost cordial terms these days, for which he offered a silent prayer every day.

It was bad enough that Major Crimes was run by an ex, even if she was still one of his smartest officers. Brenda Leigh Johnson was still as attractive as ever and he was honest enough to admit he still wanted her. The apparent break-up of her marriage might have provided a window but she had made it emphatically clear that she wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. He couldn't tell if she meant marriage or him and didn't dare ask, Brenda Leigh Johnson in a rage was a frighteningly elemental force of nature.

It hadn't helped that his tentative overtures to Sharon Raydor had been shot down with almost clinical coldness. Sharon was as beautiful as Brenda, but she was ice to Brenda's fire. When Johnson and Raydor had been at each other's throats previously he had been a referee, their ire directed at each other while part of him had secretly enjoyed watching them fight. It was a catfight fought not with claws and teeth but with words and venomous glances, but equally capable of drawing blood.

Now, having managed to come to some sort of mutual coexistence pact, they had turned their attention to everyone else, which had most of the senior echelon of the LAPD profoundly nervous.

One of them was bad enough, both together was a nightmare, as that idiot Taylor had found out several weeks back when he crossed them both at a shooting involving one of Robbery Homicide's detectives.

Pope leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes and thought back to that particularly unpleasant day, as he waited for his first meeting of the day.

Taylor had tried to stall Raydor's investigation, while refusing to allow Major Crimes to take over the original investigation, which had spiralled into a much larger case.

By the time Pope had arrived they were tag teaming Taylor on the scene, to the open amusement of both their teams. In fact Flynn and Elliot were taking bets on Taylor either having a stroke or a heart attack. Given the colour of his face, Pope wouldn't have bet against either.

He'd tried to defuse the situation, telling Taylor that he was aware that FID only had 72 hours to investigate the shooting so he should get out of their way and that Major Crimes would take over the case until Raydor's investigation was complete.

It was then that Taylor went and monumentally fucked up. He looked at the two women standing there, turned to him and demanded to know how Pope could hand a case his team had been working on for several months to a pair of 'overwrought' women. Pope knew Taylor had always had issues with women, especially in positions of authority but Jesus! He was stunned.

Before he could respond with something much beyond 'what the hell!; Raydor and Johnson had pounced on Taylor like a pair of high heeled raptors, with even less mercy, alternating tearing strips off him in front of the combined teams from Robbery Homicide, Major Crimes and Force Investigation. After about 30 seconds they started grinding salt into the wounds.

Pope had realised they weren't going to stop anytime soon and had to step in and order them to back off, before ordering Taylor back to headquarters, telling Robbery Homicide to make themselves available to FID as required and hand their files over to Major Crimes within three hours.

That last thing Pope had seen saw as he left the scene was Johnson and Raydor sharing satisfied smiles, which probably scared him more than anything.

The two of them working together had proven exceptional at solving a number of cases, ever since the Ally Moore case, however this was the first time he had seen them turn on someone as a team and it was quite frankly terrifying.

He had ended up sending Taylor on a week's leave, telling him to take a good hard look at himself before he stepped back inside the building. There wasn't much more he could do as Taylor was tight with the union and plugged into a pile of political channels, but Pope had already decided to clip his wings wherever possible.

The first was to strip him of his media liaison role; ostensibly because he was busy running Robbery Homicide and the department needed a full time media professional in the liaison role. No one could argue with that logic, plus it kept him away from the press. Pope was certain that he had been a serial leaker to them in the past, especially against Johnson, but hadn't been able to conclusively prove it yet.

The fact that the best candidate for the job, with previous police media experience and impeccable references, was a woman was just icing on the cake. Pope was hoping that a softer, more feminine face dealing with the media might help turn around the LAPDs relations with them, or at least get the force a chance to get its side of the story out.

Natalie Dearing certainly fit the bill, Pope smiled as he thought back to the interviews the department had conducted, all of the candidates had been interesting, but he still remembered every one of the interviews with Natalie, who was hard to forget. Pope was looking forward to having her around, even if she was apparently the partner of a Federal agent. Pope was honest enough to admit to himself that he did like the eye candy even if he dare not admit it to anyone.

Pope glanced at the clock, having successfully deferred the waiting paperwork for a bit longer, waiting for his first appointment of the day. The department's new FBI liaison was starting today and hopefully could settle things between the force and the Bureau. They had not really been good since Fritz Howard had left on leave, then for a new job in Washington, leaving Brenda in LA. They weren't yet officially divorced but the separation was looking very permanent.

There had been a number of temporary FBI liaison officers assigned since Fritz departed, but all were filling in until a new liaison could be permanently dedicated to the role. Special Agent Anastasia Romanov had been transferred from the Seattle field office where she had been the Bureau's police liaison there.

A quiet knock on the door brought him out of his daydreams, to see his secretary Belinda open the door to announce that his new FBI liaison officer had arrived.

Pope stood and walked around the desk to greet his visitor. He wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting, most FBI agents he had met tended to medium to large university-educated men with short haircuts and an arrogant air about them. The woman who stepped in was anything but that.

Medium height, with mid-length dark hair in a ponytail, a curvaceous build under the tailored blue pinstripe suit, her undeniably attractive face hinted at an exotic mix of backgrounds, but her voice was pure mid-west USA. No nervousness was apparent in her firm handshake as she smiled warmly back at him. As his eyes took her in a little voice deep inside where only he could hear observed that Agent Romanov could quite justifiably be classed as eye candy as well.

As they sat down Pope noticed a diamond solitaire ring gracing one hand, looking up he saw strikingly grey eyes were taking in the office, before settling back on him.

"Agent Romanov, welcome to the LAPD"

"Thank you Chief Pope, I'm pleased to finally get here".

"Why exactly did it take long to get you here, if you don't mind me asking?" She rolled her eyes.

"Bureaucracy basically; Agent Howard took several months leave before accepting a promotion to a position in Washington, which meant that the replacement process couldn't start until then. The Bureau wanted someone with previous experience as police liaison and took their time looking for someone with the right skills that was prepared to relocate to LA" She shrugged.

"I was approached about the role two months ago however I wanted to be sure my partner could find work here in LA, which they did, before I accepted the role"

"Well, I'm glad you have finally made it, better late than never" She smiled.

"Thank you, I'm looking forward to it, if only because the weather has to be better here than in Seattle" She shook her head before continuing.

"It rains way too much for my tastes up there; I got tired of standing in the rain at crime scenes"

"Well, I think we can offer you better weather here, but you'll probably still end up spending too much time at crime scenes" Pope leaned forward.

"I've been trying to put some pressure on the Bureau to speed up the process of getting a replacement for Agent Howard for several months. He had a good relationship with a number of my departments and his assistance was a big help in closing a number of major cases. The people since then have not been anywhere near as helpful" He held up his hand as Romanov went to speak.

"I'm not criticising them, but they were usually junior agents who had been assigned to work with us in addition to their normal work, the LAPD wasn't their priority and therefore they support they brought was limited. I expect that will change now that you're here" She nodded quickly.

"I can assure you it will. I was liaison to the Seattle PD for three years before coming here and established good working relationships across the force up there".

"Yes, I rang Chief Hamilton after the Bureau told me where you were coming from" Pope smiled at her as she cocked her head to one side.

"You have nothing to worry about Agent Romanov; his only complaint was that you were leaving. In fact he demanded a bottle of scotch at the next Chief's conference as his price for, as he put it, letting you go" Her smile turned into a wide grin.

"Don't let him fool you Chief; he got a bottle of 25-year old Scotch out of me before I left on exactly the same pretext" Pope smiled back.

"I expected as much, I've known Steve for more than twenty years and nothing would surprise me there. I'll buy him a drink the next time I see him and tell him to stop double dipping"

"Please give him my regards when you do. He was a good person to work with"

"I know that Belinda has arranged meetings for you with HR to get you access passes and such, plus meetings with the heads of most of the departments you will be working with regularly" She nodded.

"I believe so, although I don't know the exact schedule yet. I'm sure I will meet everyone soon enough" Pope nodded.

"There's a lot of that at the moment, we have a number of new starters this week, including a new Medical Examiner, a new media liaison and a detective on loan from Boston Homicide" She frowned.

"That's a bit unusual isn't it? I mean the detective on loan?"

"She came as a package, our Medical Examiner is also on loan from Boston, subbing for our ME whose off for six months and she asked if we could accommodate her partner. They both needed to get away from Boston for a while"

"Well, I have yet to find a police department that has enough detectives. Interesting that they let both their ME and a Homicide detective go for six months, who are these new starters?

The detective is Jane Rizzoli while the ME is Doctor Maura Isles" Pope watched her eyes widen.

"The Surgeon case, Charles Hoyt, it's them?" Pope nodded.

"Yes, that Rizzoli and Isles"