Dani and Charlie split up reluctantly and rejoined the crowd of well-wishers in her mother's home. Dani prayed they would all leave soon. Her mother walked over, trying to act casual and disguise her glee, to find out if things were now official between her Dani and her Charlie.

"Mom, would you just calm down?", moaned Dani.

"Can't I be happy that my daughter finally found a decent man?" Fariba was almost offended.

"Mom, it's not like we got engaged.", Dani maintained.

"Not yet, no. But you're not getting any younger, Dani..."

"Jesus, mom! Enough! Charlie shouldn't have said anything to you, he's just too polite for his own good.", Dani was going to kill him for opening his big mouth. She would never hear the end of this.

"You keep hold of him. He's a good boy.", Fariba warned.

"Mom, I know what he is. But he's also my partner. That kind of thing's not allowed at work and you're now shooting your mouth off in a room full of my superior officers and dad's friends." Dani lowered her voice but spoke pointedly.

"Oh.", said Fariba, wide-eyed and looking about her conspiratorially in case anyone had overheard.

"Yeah - 'oh'.", Dani said nodding at her mother and raising her eyebrows.

"Can I at least tell your aunts?", Fariba tried, still excited.

"Mom, can you just give us some time to get used to things first?", Dani whined, her head spinning. It was precisely for this reason that she usually kept most things from her mother.

Fariba relented. "Okay. But can you see your aunt Lila? This is why you need to put a ring on his finger. I will stop this." Fariba gestured over to the sofa, where Lila was sitting very close to Charlie, tossing her hair and looking enthralled by whatever it was he was saying to her.

There was nothing Fariba liked more than being trusted with a secret. Now that she had a mission too she was in her element. She patted Dani's arm in agreement and shuffled off to protect her future son-in-law's honor from her sisters' talons. Dani sighed and shook her head.

/

Tidwell saw Dani's mother leave her alone and knew that Crews was occupied with the brassy-looking woman on the couch. This was his chance. He watched her make towards the kitchen and he followed her, looking to see if Crews noticed.

"So, how have you been?", he said to her as her back was turned, picking at some of her mother's food.

Dani turned around and looked past him at the door.

"He's not there, Dani.", referring to Crews. "You're going to have to talk to me sooner or later. I'd rather it was now."

"Tidwell, what is it you want from me?", she exhaled heavily.

He wanted to turn back the clock and for things to be just as they were several months ago when he realized he was falling in love with her and he still felt like there was a chance she might feel the same way. But he couldn't say that. "Just to know that you're okay. That maybe one day we could be okay.", he said instead.

"I'm fine. It's been a tough couple of weeks but I've had help and I'm okay."

"Help from Crews?", he cut in.

Dani sighed. "Tidwell, you and I need to move on. It's over. If we're going to be friends, if we're going to work together, then we need some boundaries. You need to back off, you don't get to ask me personal questions."

"So you're together now?" He hadn't listened.

Dani wanted to tell him the truth. She wanted to say it out loud just to hear how it sounded. But he had threatened Charlie before and she knew how jealous he was, so she wouldn't risk it. "No more together than we've ever been.", she twisted it. "You're just gonna have to get used to that if you and I are gonna be friends."

"Will you come back to work next week?", he asked.

"I guess. But I want my partner back Tidwell. It's a deal-breaker. How is the investigation going?"

"Nearly done.", he said quietly.

"And what have they found? Will Crews get his suspension lifted?" He couldn't know how desperate she was to hear the answer.

"That guy always seems to land on his feet.", Tidwell said begrudgingly. Dani breathed relief, they obviously had no evidence against Charlie for Roman's murder.

"Tidwell, that guy spent twelve years of his life locked in a cell.", she reminded him. "I wouldn't describe him as naturally lucky."

Tidwell begged to differ. He was extremely lucky. He just knew that Crews had been out of line over Roman. He had mixed feelings over the fact that he had done it to save Dani. Stark and Seever had closed ranks to protect Crews and had been very careful not to incriminate him. The autopsy on Roman had shown signs of a fight as per Crews' account but it was inconclusive regarding a cause of death, the balance of probability said that the bullets pumped into his head and heart by someone other than the Detective were responsible and Tidwell had no testimony from anyone to claim any different. They were going to have to let him come back to work with a reprimand before his lawyer issued legal proceedings. He had to admit that his department's solve rate was down dramatically, he needed all his Detectives back on the job.

"I'll be speaking to his lawyer tomorrow.", ceded Tidwell. "But if he so much as thinks about stepping out of line again, he's out. I'm watching him."

Dani smiled at him. Things were getting back on track.

"I'll make sure he behaves.", she promised.

"And tell him to drop the guard dog act, doesn't suit him.", Tidwell talked tough but he did so to hide the fact that there were certain aspects of Charlie Crews that he found very intimidating and he didn't want to have to tiptoe past the guy's desk every day at work.

"Sure thing. Thanks Tidwell.", Dani replied.

Tidwell had now done what he came to the wake to do and considered it time to leave. She saw him out of the kitchen door, him pausing for a fraction of a second wanting to kiss her cheek out of habit but realizing sadly that those days were gone.

/

While Dani and Tidwell were in the kitchen, Fariba came to a halt at the sofa. Her body English meant business but her eyes still smiled. Charlie and Lila looked up at her and even for a tiny woman, her presence seemed to loom over them. She was holding a large leather-bound book.

"Lila, move over. I have something I want to show Charlie.", she ordered.

Lila frowned and asked her older sister what the hell she thought she was doing, her and Charlie were just fine as they were, all in Farsi. Fariba frowned back and told Lila she should be ashamed of herself, acting like a slut at a wake, and Charlie was way too young for her anyway. Charlie looked on, amused as they babbled, watching Fariba scowling at her sister and eventually winning whatever the argument was about. Lila shifted over so that Fariba could sit down between them, physically putting a stop to anything that Lila thought she had going on with her daughter's beau.

"I have photos. You want to see?", Fariba asked Charlie, who nodded enthusiastically, glad for a respite in Lila's attentions. Dani's aunt had placed her hand on his knee at one point and he wasn't sure what he should do about it.

Fariba flipped through the pages as Lila rolled her eyes. She let him see Dani's baby photos and glanced at him approvingly as he made all the right noises but she had really retrieved the album because there were a lot of pictures from Jack's days in the LAPD and she wanted to reminisce with her guests. She had only started with Charlie because she wanted to break up his chat with Lila.

Charlie felt a little uncomfortable flicking through the record of Jack's life like this but he humored Fariba. The photos of her and Dani when they were younger touched his heart but he felt awkward having to comment on snaps of Jack at the training academy, at parades and LAPD socials because he had despised the guy and he knew how he had treated Dani and her mom. To make things easier, he helped her identify other people in the room whose younger selves also featured in the photos. Commander Boyczech was in quite a few, having rose through the ranks with Jack, and Fariba tore up an old envelope to mark the pages so that she could show him later. There were pictures of training days, Christmas balls and several pages of photos devoted to an Alsatian dog that Jack was clearly close to. Fariba had been as pretty as Dani when she was younger and he told her so, earning yet more adoration from his new pal. Jack's hair went from salt and pepper to gray and then to silver white throughout the pages as the years advanced. Lila yawned and got up from the sofa to go check on Little Jimmy who was messing around out front having swiped somebody's cigarettes and was now trying to find a light. Suddenly Charlie froze. He asked Fariba a question about the photo above the three he was really interested in, so that she paused a while on the page long enough for him to get a good look. Jack was photographed at some kind of awards event, in the not too distant past by the look of the clothes the hair and his age in the picture, presenting a framed certificate to a younger officer. A younger Detective Paul Grant. His eyes flipped to the opposite page and saw Jack posing for the camera with his arms around both Grant and a very young Miroslav. The next picture showed a group of guys stood around drinking and smoking, looking convivial; amongst them Reese, Miroslav and Grant were sharing a joke. They knew each other, quite obviously. But they had failed to identify him at the dock, despite the fact that Jack had not been dead all that long and his cerebral bullet wound being located above the hairline, not obscuring his features. Charlie went quiet but Fariba didn't notice, continuing to commentate on the pages of photos.

Dani approached, her face dropping in horror as soon as she saw what her mother was brandishing. She knew that album contained images of her in diapers and not much else. She was mortified and she was going to kill Fariba, it had taken her mom like five minutes to embarrass her in front of Charlie, she couldn't help herself.

"Hey Dani, I would have imagined that you were a cute baby but I never expected so much puppy fat.", teased Charlie with a huge grin, putting Miroslav and Grant to the back of his mind.

"Oh, she was a big baby. She never stopped eating!", Fariba chimed in.

"Just stop right there, Crews, if you know what's good for you.", Dani narrowed her eyes at him.

He heeded her warning, turning to Fariba, thanking her for her hospitality and explaining that he needed to leave. His head had started to hurt and he wanted to get out of there to think about those photos. Fariba looked disappointed but made him promise that he was coming back soon and repeated that he was invited to dinner the following weekend. She kissed him like he was setting off on an overseas voyage and finally let him go, telling him that Dani would see him out with a mischievous glint in her eye.

It took them another half hour to say goodbye to Mina, Majid, Dara, Farah, Ava, Tara and Cory and finally make it to the door. They found Lila yelling at Little Jimmy outside, but she stopped when she saw them and insisted on giving Charlie a warm kiss goodbye, much to Dani's amusement. Charlie shook Little Jimmy's hand and advised him to plead the fifth amendment, leaving them to resume their mother-son argument by the rose bed.

They walked out to Charlie's car, which was parked on the street behind a line of others. He contemplated telling her about his discovery in the family photo album but he thought better of it, Dani had been through enough for one day. She noted that he was uncharacteristically quiet and projected her sadness that he was leaving onto him, assuming that this was the reason for his taciturn demeanor.

"So I straightened things out with Tidwell.", she said in order to cheer him up as he walked over to the driver's side of his car. She stopped at the passenger side.

Charlie looked up, annoyed that Tidwell had gotten past him to her in the first place.

She saw him react possessively. "It was fine. He seems to think that you'll be allowed back to work pretty soon. They have nothing on you, Charlie." She smiled.

He smiled back at her across the hood of his car. "So we'll be partners again?"

"Yeah. We'll be partners and then some." She wanted to let him know that today had not been a one off. "We'll have to be careful at work. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to keep my hands to myself." she looked at him seductively.

"...because I'm so handsome and charming?", he joked.

"Because I'm falling in love with you. In fact, I'm probably already there.", she said simply, suddenly serious, surprised at herself saying the words so freely.

Charlie held on to the car for balance. He couldn't speak for a second because he was feeling his heart swell in his chest and a small lump develop in his throat. He gathered himself.

"About time, Reese. I've been here for a while now.", he replied shyly. He saw her grin in response. "Want to get into the car so I can show you?"

"No. I'm done with sex in confined spaces. I want to do things properly.", she turned the tables on him.

"So come home with me, I have plenty of room.", he urged her, his mouth suddenly very dry.

"Not today, I need to get these people out of my mom's house." This thing with Crews had taught her all about delayed gratification. She had never had the patience for it before but if today in the bathroom was anything to go by, she had decided she could now see the benefits.

"But soon?", he asked. She was going to be the death of him.

"Soon. And properly.", she purred. And as much as she wanted to kiss him goodbye, to kiss him blind and to kiss him all over, she managed to back off slowly and then walk away.

He stood there, dumbfounded, ecstatic and shaking, and watched her disappear back into the house.