Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

xXxXx BEGIN FLASHBACK xXxXx

“Some room,” Fillmore scoffed. Ingrid stared at the large black words on the white wall in front of her with disdain as he set down a steaming cup of cocoa in front of her. “I practically spent my first two months of school here—” She eyed the cup suspiciously. “—‘til, that is, my former partner Wayne drafted me out of a life of delinquency and into the safety patrol.” Ingrid remained silent but, after a moment’s pause, Fillmore sat down next to her and pressed on. “You’re lying, Ingrid. You didn’t do it and I can prove it.”

Ingrid shrugged and finally shifted her glare to the dark-skinned boy next to her. “So what?” she said. “Look, they’re gonna expel me and I want out. Why would I want to stay here?”

Fillmore ignored her question and explained, “I have an ATM tape that proves you weren’t anywhere near the school when that stink bomb was set off.”

Ingrid’s glare hardened. “And I have an eggplant that looks like Fred Durst!” she argued, her voice piercing the air like knives. “Didn’t you hear me? I – don’t – care. I just want to forget you people!”

Fillmore fought off the split second of confusion – he had no idea who that was – and squared his shoulders, infuriated that she’d lumped him with Parnassus of all people. Especially after everything he’d been doing for her. “Don’t say ‘you people’!” he snapped and stood up defensively, pointing a thumb at himself. “This person’s been out there busting his tail trying to clear your name. And what do I get in return? A messed-up eggplant.”

Guilt sparked in Ingrid’s chest as he started to sit back down. He made an excellent point. When was the last time anyone had ever stuck their neck out for her? She had already confessed, yet here he was, still trying to prove everyone wrong, including herself. Needless to say, she felt… well, grateful.

“What’s that?” he exclaimed jokingly. “Joan of Arc cracked a smile!” She hadn’t even realized she had smiled but she wiped the smirk from her face as he continued. “Ingrid, you didn’t do it. Don’t take the fall because of a hundred fools who want easy answers. You’ve got a friend at X.” Ingrid frowned down at her desk. “Me.”

‘Friend?’ she thought to herself. No one had called her their friend for a long time. Partner in crime? Yeah. Someone to use? Definitely. But… friend?

“You know, I was thinking,” she started, but paused to choose her words carefully. Fillmore nodded, urging her to continue. “If one person other than the welcome wagon girl was the least bit nice to me by two o’clock, I wouldn’t confess to doing something I didn’t do.”

Fillmore smirked softly at her. “I would’ve been here earlier, but I’ve been busy trying to clear a friend’s name.” Despite herself, Ingrid smiled again and looked back up at him as he held out his hand to her. “Cornelius Fillmore.”

She shook his hand. “Ingrid Third.”

xXxXx END FLASHBACK xXxXx

Ingrid, clad in a carefully distressed Sex Pistols t-shirt and a pair of dark jean shorts, strode towards the Fillmore residence. Normally, shorts weren’t her thing – it wasn’t a secret how pale she was, so why should she flaunt it? – but the relentless heat and humidity made anything more conservative than shorts almost unbearable. From (very recent) firsthand experience, she’d discovered that Minnesota summers could be brutal and unforgiving, and that she’d much rather grin and bear the temporary discomfort of showing off her legs and risk blinding everyone she passed than melt.

Ingrid approached the home just as a large U-Haul truck turned onto the street and headed in her direction and her heart leapt in her chest. Relax, Third, she berated herself. She sped up – suddenly all too eager to reach the front door before the moving truck – as she fought off the intrusive memories of skipping from one town to the next. She didn’t bother to knock before turning the knob and shutting the door swiftly behind her.

“Ingrid, perfect timing!” Joelle greeted. Her strained voice came from behind a large box labelled “fragile dishes” – with three lines of emphasis under the word “fragile” – and Ingrid ran up to steady it. She heard a sigh of relief from the other side of the box. “Oh, thank you,” Jo said. “Let’s just put it down right here for the movers.”

Ingrid grimaced at those words, but she told herself it was the weight of the box they were lowering to the ground, and not the harrowing fact that her best friend was moving. Joelle exhaled dramatically as they set the hefty box on the ground with a quiet clatter. “Looking for Cornelius?”

Ingrid shrugged and eyeballed the box his mother had just been struggling with. “Not if you need more help than he does.”

Joelle let out a hearty chuckle and shook her head. “Honey, I couldn’t even get him out of bed til after ten, he’s gonna need all the help he can get,” she chided as the movers knocked on the door Ingrid had just entered. “He should be in his room, and if you see him back in bed, would you slap him with something for me?”

“You got it,” Ingrid chuckled and walked in the direction of Fillmore’s room as Joelle greeted the men enthusiastically, ready to move onto the next chapter of their lives.

It was a foreign feeling, packing up someone else’s house to relocate. Ingrid had always been the one doing the moving. As she continued down the hallway, warily eyeing its recently barren walls, she had to fight the apprehension rising in her chest. It’s not like he’s leaving the state, Third, she told herself. Hell, he’s not even leaving the school district. You wanna calm down?

The Fillmores moving was a good thing. Karim had been working much too hard since their youngest son had (finally) straightened himself out, giving him the time he needed to work on getting his family out of the projects and, more importantly, getting his son out of the area that had turned him towards delinquency in the first place. Of course, no one was particularly worried that he’d fall back into old habits, especially with Ingrid around, but they were ready to move on nonetheless. Moving uptown was the change that they needed.

But Ingrid wasn’t too big on change. While she’d gotten used to it over the course of her childhood – parental abandonment and constant moving with minimal transitioning made sure of that – she allowed herself to become much too comfortable with the way her life turned out, and she didn’t want to risk it changing. Well, she didn’t have much choice in the matter, anyhow.

A loud thud followed by a faint curse came from the other side of Fillmore’s bedroom door and she hurried over to it. “Fillmore, you okay?” She turned the handle and, expecting it to swing open, she kept moving forward, but the door hardly budged and she ran into it. Stunned, she stared dumbly at it, then jiggled the handle again. But, it’s not locked…?

“Hold up—" Another crash. “Ah, sh—”

“Fillmore?”

“I’m good!” he called, sounding slightly pained. “Just a sec.” She heard scraping on the other side of the door, and seconds later, it opened, albeit slightly. “You can squeeze through that, right?” he huffed.

Ingrid raised her eyebrow at the narrow opening he’d given her. “I’m sure I can, but,” she sighed heavily and pinched her chin in phony thought, “it would take some effort, and it’s still fairly early in the day.” She heard him scoff in amusement. “In fact, I might need to go grab some coffee while I think about it—”

“Only if you get me some while you’re at it,” he interrupted, with a grunt of effort as he pulled at whatever was blocking the door, “and spike it with Jim Beam or something.” The door creaked open farther and he finally poked his head around the back of the door. “Actually, just bring me some JB, with or without the coffee.”

She rolled her eyes, but, at the way his dark eyes gleamed in a mixture of mischief and stress, she couldn’t help but smirk. “I think I’m a little too young to provide that kind of hook up,” she chuckled as she turned sideways and shuffled into the room. “And if I’m a little too young to come through, I know that you’re a little too young to be asking.”

“Yeah, I wish I wasn’t,” he said with a laugh. Once she squeezed past the bookcase which had been blocking the door, she saw why. Ingrid wasn’t normally easy to surprise, but, considering the fact Fillmore was supposed to be packing, the amount of… well, junk that littered his bedroom floor shocked her. It all seemed to be originating from his closet. She could see a small, barren circle by its wide doorway, just Fillmore’s size, where he must have been sitting and pulling it all out. She shook her head, desperately trying to disguise the rising laughter in her chest with a disappointed sigh.

“Oh, Fillmore.”

He rubbed the back of his neck bashfully, with the other hand on his hip. “Yeah, I, uh…” he paused, not sure how to defend himself. He looked back up with a one-armed shrug. “Nostalgia?”

She scoffed. “You mean clutter?”

“It’s not clutter if it’s been hidden in my closet and out of the way for…” he trailed off and skimmed over the objects strewn across the floor. He scratched his head and looked back up at her. “…ever.”

“No wonder your mom said you’d need help.”

“Hey, she knows that underneath this masculine exterior—” he motioned to himself, and Ingrid didn’t hold back an eyeroll, “—I’m a pretty sentimental guy.”

“Clearly.” Ingrid poked an empty box marked “closet stuff” on the floor with her toe. “And here I was thinking some of these boxes would be marked ‘Goodwill’.”

He gasped, offended. “Are you saying you think all this—” he motioned to the dozens of objects strewn across the floor “—is junk?”

Ingrid scanned the floor again. She saw an old, broken bike lock, an old tin container, a couple of yearbooks, among many other things, but none of which screamed “significance” to her. It all seemed disposable. She shrugged. “I mean, I never said ‘junk’.”

Fillmore pointed at her. “Good. Because it’s not,” he told her as he returned to the barren circle on the floor. “So stop rolling your eyes.” Ingrid bit her lip to hide a smile. He wasn’t even looking at her, yet he knew exactly what she was doing. He knew her so well already… and now he’s moving. Jeez, Third, she thought as her stomach twisted into knots again. Don’t be so dramatic. Isn’t this hard enough already?

She shook her head as he sat down in the circle, pointed to the tin container, and said, “I can’t help it when you claim that an empty container of Ouch! bubble gum isn’t junk.”

“Hey, that just so happened to be the only bubble gum I ever enjoyed as a kid, and I’ll be damned if I let myself forget the pain I felt deep in my soul—” he held a fist to his chest, “—when they discontinued it.”

Ingrid chuckled. “Sounds like the wound’s still fairly fresh, so what do you need the reminder for?”

“Because,” he began, pulling over an empty box to set in his lap, “while you have that handy photographic memory, one day, my looks and charm are gonna be all I have going for me, and I’m gonna need all the reminders I can get.”

“You know, they say that you can’t take it with you.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint Third, but I’m moving, not dying.”

“Maybe not now,” Ingrid replied with a shrug, “but if your mom comes in and sees this mess, you might be doing both.”

“Why do you think I put the bookcase where I did?” Fillmore grinned up at her as she shook her head, a mischievous gleam in his dark eyes. “I’ll tell you what: if you let me prove to you that every single one of these things have true sentimental value, I’ll let you start putting them into boxes.”

Ingrid raised her eyebrow. “And what am I supposed to gain from this compromise other than doing all the work for you?”

“My mom won’t kill me.” Ingrid scoffed, but couldn’t hold back a smile. “So, whaddya say?”

Ingrid sighed, despite that she’d already made up her mind about helping him when she walked in the front door. She carefully brushed her foot across the floor, gently pushing the bike lock she spotted earlier towards him. “What’s with this?” she asked before she sat down.

Fillmore snatched the cable lock from the ground, weighing it in his hands. “This thing of beauty is the Bell Watchdog 100.” His lips curled up in a mischievous smirk. “It was from the first bike I ever stole.”

“Now that I understand.”

Fillmore winked and handed her the box, tossing the cable inside it when she had the box firmly in her hands. He rubbed his hands together and looked around. “Now, what’s next…”

xXxXx

An hour passed before Ingrid finally began to see the difference in the amount of clutter as mementos made their way from the floor and into a box. They’d already filled one and were on to the second when he got to his yearbooks. He’d flipped through a few of them with her, and instantly regretted each one as she watched him transition from a toothless wonder, to John Bender-esque delinquent, to Safety Patrol legend.

“I still have that shirt,” he admitted with a quiet laugh, pointing to the frayed red flannel his 11-year-old self wore. It was moments like that which made her grateful for a photographic memory. She knew, someday, that would come in handy.

“Looks like somebody had something of an idol,” she said coyly as she flipped the page, which was a picture collage of candids. She quickly skimmed over them all, looking for the young face of the boy sitting next to her, when her eyes fell on another familiar face, many years younger.

“Yeah,” he admitted, dragging out the word, “if I’d had the chance to be John Bender for a day, I woulda jumped on that in a heartbeat.”

Ingrid bit her lip as she stared down at the picture, unsure if she’d known him long enough to ask. Curiosity got the better of her, and she tapped on the picture with a delicate finger. “Was she your Claire Standish?”

Fillmore did a double take as he registered exactly who she pointed at before his face fell. Come on, Ingrid, she thought as she observed his fallen expression, you’ve only known him for, what, seven months? Way to overstep. She was thinking about how to apologize when he said, “Maybe,” and gently pulled the book from her grasp and set it down on his lap, “if Claire Standish always overcooked her chicken.” Ingrid shifted uncomfortably next to him as he ran his finger over the picture. He and Penny were perched on the bleachers, the girl hiding her smiling face in one of his arms while his other was stretched out towards the cameraman, attempting to block his shot.

Ingrid noticed something different about him in that photo – the glare in his eyes held a muted malice she’d never seen in him before, and his shoulders were taught, almost defensive. The Fillmore in the picture was the complete opposite of the boy who sat comfortably next to her, who stared down at the picture with a long-lost affection in his eyes Ingrid recognized from when he first laid eyes on Penny at the auction. She’d known something was there, but she didn’t ask, and he never told. At the time, she didn’t want him digging into her past, so she decided to stay out of his unless he offered it.

That was months ago. They still hardly knew much about each other. She had a good idea as to how Fillmore’s mind worked – what his tells were, when she needed to talk sense into him, and when she needed to leave him be – but she hardly had a clue how he came to be the Fillmore she knew. Maybe, she bit her lip, this is how I start.

“You never told me much about her,” she pointed out, uncrossing her legs and hugging them to her chest.

Fillmore shrugged. “Not much to tell,” he said nonchalantly. However, when he never looked up from the picture, Ingrid knew better.

“Is that why you can’t take your eyes off her?”

He finally tore his eyes away from the picture to smile at the far wall and shake his head. Without meeting her eyes, he said, “For someone I haven’t known for all that long, you really know how to push my buttons.”

“Well, for being the best undercover guy on the Patrol, you’re kind of a bad liar.”

He chuckled and stole a glance at Ingrid, who smiled softly at him, before he looked back down at the picture and sighed, fighting the heat rising to his cheeks. No one had ever asked about her before – they all knew his and her records overlapped pretty frequently, but that was that. No one ever thought to dig deeper. They were criminals and that was all anyone needed to know.

“Back in the sixth grade, Sonny said he knew a guy who could help me con some S.A.T.T.Y. 9 answer keys to sell to all the kids freaking out about the big test. Turns out, it wasn’t a ‘guy’ at all. It was Penny.”

Ingrid’s brow furrowed. “I’ve never heard about that con.”

“That’s because we never got the chance to get them to print,” he explained. A ghost of a smile appeared on his lips. “That was the first time I ever got busted by Wayne.”

“Wow,” Ingrid said, eyeing Wayne’s school picture somewhere between Fillmore’s and Penny’s. “You guys really do go back.”

Fillmore chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “After that, though, Penny and I were inseparable. We kept Wayne busy for sure. Locker rigging, cutting class…” Fillmore trailed off, looking behind him and reaching into his closet for something, and he dragged out a bound stack of comic books. “We even started a comic book poker ring.” He handed her the pile of comics and she set it carefully on her lap to brush the dust off its plastic cover with her hand.

“You guys got away with a lot in a span of two months, though,” she said, slowly wedging the stack into the box in front of her. Fillmore nodded as he watched her. “Seems like you guys worked really well together.”

“Yeah, we did,” he agreed, snapping the yearbook shut and holding it lightly in his hands. After a moment of silence, Ingrid felt the tension still lingering in the air between them. She was almost too afraid to push him – seeing as, in her mind, this was a risky conversation to start with him in the first place – but, if she was being honest, she was too curious.

“But?” she asked, praying she didn’t push him too hard.

Fillmore refused to look over at her. “But what?”

She bit her lip, cautiously. Her heart raced at the thought of him being angry at her, but a part of her couldn’t let it go. For the last hour, he’d shown her dozens of items, all of which had a degree of sentimental value that Fillmore couldn’t let go of. She’d seen an old shirt he’d gotten from Wayne (one she was sure he’d outgrown by now) from a convention they’d gone to together, his purple rabbit mug that Karen had gotten him as a welcome present on his first day on the force, and plenty of other things whose meanings she marveled at. But the one thing that almost every single item had in common was that there was a person attached to that piece of history. And she’d noticed a pile behind him he’d refused to touch – a pile, she now wondered, that might represent Penny.

He was right: these things weren’t “junk” to him. They were reminders of what had been important to him, or rather, who. And she couldn’t help but notice that he’d yet to show her something that reminded him of herself. Of course, Ingrid couldn’t necessarily blame him, considering they’d barely known each other for a year, but for her, that drove home a point. A point that none of the things he kept were worthless. The people tied to those objects mattered to him.

And a pile of well-preserved limited-edition comic books from his days with her, along with the pile of mementos he was hiding behind him, proved her point.

“But, you loved her.” Ingrid held her breath as he blinked in shock. He hadn’t expected that kind of conviction from her. How had she guessed that? For a moment, he almost brushed her off, told her that she was crazy and that he and Penny were just close friends, but… she knew. Saying otherwise would be pointless.

He finally sighed and nodded. “So much that I took the fall for her.”

Ingrid tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“Wayne was getting too close,” Fillmore told her and ran his hand over his head. “He got wind of where we were playing poker one night, but Penny had one more strike before she’d be expelled. And I didn’t have enough time to get everyone out without risking Wayne catching her by chance.”

“What did you do?”

“I slipped her a note under a card. Told her we were gonna be busted, but if she could slip out without alerting everyone, I’d take care of it. And she did.” He looked down at his hands, which rested palm-up in his lap. “And she never looked back.” Ingrid bit her lip. Penny ran from him? It shocked her, that for two people who seemed to be so close, she never looked back. Fillmore continued, “Wayne said he’d cut me a deal: help him solve another case or spend the rest of the year in detention. I only agreed because I needed to warn Penny to stay away from it, but I couldn’t find her. She transferred out.”

“Did she ever tell you why?” Ingrid asked, and Fillmore shook his head. “Not even when she invited you to dinner?” He shook his head again.

“I thought she was going to, but we never got around to it if she was. Before I could ever ask…” Fillmore trailed off, wondering if it would be smart to share something like that with Ingrid. While he trusted her to have his back in the field, he couldn’t know how she’d react to that truth. They were both on the right side of the law, and while neither of them cared for coverups, this was different. At least, it was different for him. With a deep breath, he hoped she’d feel the same. “…she slipped up. And I found the rest of the counterfeit rookie cards in her garage.”

Ingrid’s eyes widened. She knew something was suspicious when Penny disappeared the day after the bust, but she didn’t think it was that. She thought maybe it was hurt pride, or fear of false accusation. “She was the one who left them on the football field the next day?” she asked.

He nodded. “After I found them, I told her to meet me at HQ the next morning and I left. But when we heard that someone found them on the field, I knew she was gone. And she didn’t leave any trace of evidence behind, so I thought… why bother dragging her name through the mud again, you know?” He looked over at her, a pleading look in his eyes, and Ingrid frowned. Her heart ached for him.

“I’m sorry, Fillmore,” she murmured after a long silence.

He shrugged, relieved that she didn’t say anything more. “Ah, I’ve moved on,” he said, waving her off, but she raised her eyebrow, and eyeballed the pile behind him.

“Is that why you’re still holding onto those Barry Bonds cards?” she asked with a playful smirk, and he laughed bashfully, running his hand over his face.

“I can’t sneak anything past you, can I?” he laughed.

“You don’t have to,” she told him. He looked at her and she shrugged. “You know, Fillmore…” she paused, uncertain if she wanted to open up to him, but figured if he could do it with her, she could do the same with him. “You’re probably one of the first real friends I’ve ever had.” Fillmore smiled at that, and she fought a blush rising to her cheeks. “All of this—” she motioned to the mementos all around her “—it’s a new thing for me. After my mom left, I’ve never stayed in one place long enough to have good friends. And what’s the point of carrying all this kind of stuff around if I’d just move again?

“I’ve never been one to really open up to people or one to want anyone to get close to me. Especially if they’re only temporary. But this place… you—” she nudged his shoulder and he chuckled, taking it in stride, “—you changed all that for me. And I’m not planning on going anywhere any time soon so…” She held her breath for a moment to gather up the courage. “I want you to be able to trust me. With anything. We are cut from the same cloth in a way, so it’s not like I can judge you for your darkness when I have my own.”

For a moment, Fillmore just stared into her eyes, searching their depths for a tell that he knew probably wouldn’t be there, looking for any sign of deceit. Then, he smiled at her, knowing full well she was telling the truth. She smiled bashfully back at him, feeling self-conscious of her vulnerability, when he reached behind him for the rookie cards she’d pointed out.

“These are the real ones, you know,” he told her. “She left them on my front porch for me to find the day she skipped town. They’ll be worth a fortune someday.”

She smirked. “I guess you can’t say she never gave you anything.”

Fillmore laughed, tossing them carelessly into the box in front of them. “Touché.”

“Hey guys,” Joelle called through the door, “I’ve got pizza!”

“We’ll be right there!” Fillmore called back. He stood up and stretched as his stomach growled and Ingrid couldn’t help but laugh. He looked down at her defensively. “What? You telling me that the thought of pizza doesn’t make your stomach growl?”

“Can’t say that it does,” she chided as he walked to the door.

“Well, I guess that means there’ll be more for me then!” he joked and slid between the dresser to get to the door. Her joints ached as she stood up, and she stretched as well, and her eyes fell on a box of CDs on the desk to her left she didn’t notice before. If she hadn’t spotted one of the album’s covers sitting on top, she wouldn’t have stopped to look. Predominately blue and orange, she recognized it instantly and scoffed in shock. No way…

Fillmore wasn’t a hard rock type. He loved his R&B, his hip hop, the occasional mainstream rock hit. But, among his collection of RUN-DMC, Jay-Z, and Eminem albums, lay her favorite Limp Bizkit album, Significant Other. The day she met Fillmore, he’d had no clue who Fred Durst was. She had to explain her eggplant joke to him later.

“Yo Ing, are you coming?” Fillmore called from behind the book case. She looked up just in time to see him poke his head around the corner, and she held up the CD with a grin.

“Quite a variation from your default music collection.”

Once he registered what album she had in her hands, he grinned at her. “Yeah, some girl I met once told me that album changed her life. She even named her eggplant after their singer.” Ingrid couldn’t hold back her laugh as he continued, “I figured if I wanted to get to know her better, I’d give it a listen.” She smiled at him, hoping he didn’t notice the butterflies careening around in her stomach as he winked at her. “I’m glad I did.” He disappeared around the corner again and his footsteps retreated down the hall and out of earshot.

She tapped the case in her hand with a polished nail before setting it back in the box she found it in. She took a good long look around the room at all the memories and took a deep breath. The more things he’d shown her, it surprised her how increasingly worried she became that nothing he had in front of them was a memory of her. He didn’t have anything from her in those boxes because she wasn’t just a memory of times past. She was in his present.

She couldn’t have been more relieved.

Chapter Text

Fallen leaves crunched under the soles of her combat boots as she walked down the otherwise empty sidewalk. Tall Heights strummed softly into her ears an autumn ballad that matched her mood: wistful and optimistic. She took a deep, slow breath of cool, crisp air and let it out as a light breeze blew past her, taking a swirl of orange and yellow leaves with it. Tucking her dark hair back behind her ear, Ingrid couldn’t help but smile. She loved fall, and everything about it: the colors, the weather, the clothes. Her sweater-and-combat-boot combo was finally a temperature-reasonable outfit selection for the season. She crossed her arms over her well-worn and loved Halloween sweater as a brief chill washed over her.

She smiled again. Not only was it finally fall, but it was finally Halloween. Well, it would be on Thursday. But, regardless, she was in good spirits. A couple teens on their bikes whizzed past her on the street, stirring up the leaves in their paths and sending them dancing through the air right past her. Guess I’m not alone, she thought as she heard them laugh. After checking over her shoulder, she continued onward as the song ended and skipped to another.

Although, as the slight pang in her chest reminded her, it wasn’t going to be a normal Halloween. Not without Ariella. She was off at her first semester of college, and driving home and back on a Thursday would be, as Ariella put it: “worth it, but ludicrous”. Of course, Ingrid understood, but it didn’t mean she didn’t feel hurt when Ari broke the news to her.

Halloween was their thing. Even throughout the constant moving Ingrid’s delinquent behavior forced them to do, through whatever tragedy had befallen them, or whatever sibling rivalry they’d gotten themselves into, they always had Halloween. Ingrid kicked through a pile of leaves, faltering for a moment as she realized someone had probably piled them there purposefully. She bitterly shrugged it off. Whoever decided to rake leaves on a windy day would have to do it all over again either way. She checked over her shoulder again before she crossed the street, biting her lip deep in thought.

It didn’t feel right without her here. With Ari, Halloween was a whole week fiasco: they’d design their costumes together (and, one hysterical year, design a costume for the other sister), spend a better part of a night or two decorating their house floor to ceiling much to their father’s dismay, and sometimes, just to keep her sister “out of trouble”, Ari would tag along on some of Ingrid’s juvenile Halloween pranks (including one unfortunate incident involving toilet paper and mini stank grenades). After Ingrid met Fillmore and straightened out, their Halloween activities switched to roller skating around town while kids trick or treated and enjoying each other’s company and the festive atmosphere. They’d end up back at home, passing out candy with their father and watching scary movies. It became a tradition.

Ingrid frowned as the school came into view. As pitiful as it made her feel, she couldn’t help but worry about what to do for the week. It wasn’t like she could give Ariella all the credit for helping her get back on the straight and narrow, but, although Ingrid might never admit it to her, if she hadn’t started tagging along with Ingrid those nights, she probably would’ve gotten into much worse trouble. Ari couldn’t have stopped her sister’s mischief, but she staved off some of the consequences long enough for Fillmore to come into the picture. And for that, Ingrid would be eternally grateful. As ridiculous as it sounded to even her own ears, she worried that stirring up trouble might feel all too tempting without her around.

She’d been doing a marvelous job at avoiding the prospect of that, thanks to the spike in criminal activity that always kept the Safety Patrol busy around Halloween, but the time had come. A part of her figured she could just spend it with her father in a pathetic attempt to keep some of the tradition alive, while another part of her reminded her that she did have friends – fellow officer friends – she could spend the time with. But, although she had options, she couldn’t stop dwelling on how, no matter what she decided to do and how fun it could be, none of it would be the same without her sister. She kicked more leaves out of her way and rolled her eyes. You’re thinking too much again, Third.

She shook her head and took another deep breath. The clean air filled up her lungs and sent a relaxing chill down her spine, and as she exhaled, she forced a smile. This wasn’t the kind of weather to allow oneself to be plagued by anxious thoughts in. It was the kind of weather to enjoy, which was the entire reason for her morning walk in the first place. As she took in another deep breath, she felt the smile on her face become more genuine as another light chill passed over her.

It’ll be okay, the wind told her as it stirred up the autumn leaves in whirlwinds all around her, and Ingrid knew it was true. The weight of worry on her shoulders lifted and she stepped lighter through the widespread crowd towards the school doors. Their chatter creeped over the sound of the music in her headphones, and, with a heavy sigh, she stopped her song and pulled them out of her ears. The time for fall morning peace was over, but she managed to keep the lightness in her footsteps as someone all too familiar fell into step effortlessly beside her.

“Looks like someone’s in a pretty good mood for missing out on her morning drive with her best friend,” he said and held out a steaming to-go cup to her.

“Seems like you were the one doing the missing, Fillmore,” she replied with a smirk, carefully taking the hot paper cup out of his hands. “You never go to my favorite café before school by yourself because you’re too afraid its Starbucks quality will stain your masculinity if I’m not there with you.”

Fillmore threw his head back with a hearty laugh. “Oh, is that it?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she continued, ignoring his interruption and holding the cup to her chest, soaking in its warmth, “but it seems like you want to make me regret not going with you this morning by rubbing it in my face that you went there without me.”

Fillmore gaped at her. “What makes you think I’m capable of being such an asshole this early in the morning?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe you’re butthurt that I’d rather walk to school in silence and enjoy my own company than watch you stroke your ego by revving your gas guzzling truck in the drive through and ‘accidentally’ handing the cute barista your fancy new driver’s license instead of your debit card.” She smirked up at him as a pained look crossed his face.

“Damn, mama,” he said and held a hand to his chest as they approached the Safety Patrol HQ, “I think you managed to hurt the only feeling I had left.”

“And all before my morning coffee. Great Scott, you’re right—” Ingrid winked at him “—I must be in a good mood,” she concluded as she slipped through the door.

“I’ll say,” he chided, following close behind her. With a raised brow, he watched her walk towards their desks and greet Karen and Anza as she passed them. He scoffed in wonder, but shook his head with a sly smile as Karen turned his way. “And how’s Miss Smart and Sexy doing this morning?”

Karen rolled her eyes but returned his smile as he approached. “Miss Smart and Sexy was starting to wonder if you were ever gonna show up. Didn’t your mama ever tell you to never keep a girl waiting?” She sat on the corner of Anza’s desk and crossed her slim legs, while Anza suddenly became very focused on whatever was on his computer screen.

“Well, lucky for you, your wait’s over, baby girl,” Fillmore replied and threw his arm around her shoulders.

“‘Luckily’,” Ingrid corrected and sank into her desk chair. She pulled her legs up into the seat and crossed them as she took in the scene before her: as always, officers slowly pooled into the headquarters around them and paid no mind to Fillmore’s and Karen’s unabashed flirting, but, while the routine hadn’t changed, something in the air seemed different. She did a quick inventory of the officers all around her, and her uncertain eyes fell on Anza who, strangely enough, refused to participate in the banter happening next to him. To the untrained eye, he was simply preoccupied, most likely with the stack of files piled next to his keyboard, but Ingrid watched him aimlessly scroll through the database with no noticeable intent before his eyes flickered jealously between the screen and Ingrid’s partner as he planted a quick playful kiss to the side of Karen’s head. Ingrid squinted at Anza. He’s… jealous?

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Fillmore shot at Ingrid before abandoning his spot by Karen and heading over to his desk.

Karen stood up straight. “But, for real, we got a problem, guys,” she said.

Fillmore’s eyes narrowed. “What kinda problem?” he asked, dropped his bag by his desk, and put his hands on his hips.

“Don’t get all heroic on us, man,” Anza finally chipped in with an eyeroll, “it’s not an actual problem.” He shot Karen a cocky wink, but she shot him back with a hard glare and hands on her narrow hips.

“It is an actual problem,” she argued, and Anza raised his hands in surrender, “even if I’m the only one who thinks so.”

“What’s up, Tehama?” Ingrid asked, although, she had to admit that she was much more curious about whatever problem Anza had than Karen, as she watched his behavior shift so quickly.

“Halloween is this week, we have nothing planned, and something tells me that Ingrid’s gonna be the only one open to suggestions,” she explained, pointing to the creepy skull on Ingrid’s sweater.

Ingrid shrugged in agreement as relief washed over her. She’d almost forgotten about her worries around Halloween, but that was the perfect opportunity to bring it up. She started to when Fillmore snapped his fingers. “Dawg, that reminds me! Shelby’s actually having a party at her place that night, and everyone’s invited.” He held his hands out by his sides. “Problem solved.” But, instead of the excited reaction he’d been hoping for, the three officers around him stared at him blankly. His eyebrows wrinkled, and he turned his head. “What?”

After sharing a brief look with the others, Tehama approached him. “I hate to break it to you, sunshine, but,” she put her hands on his broad shoulders, looked regretfully into his dark eyes, and said with a sigh, “we would rather help O’Farrell take pictures of his ass than spend Halloween with her.”

At the mention of his name, Danny O’Farrell hurried over. “What about me?” he asked, leaning over Anza’s desk while Anza waved him off.

Fillmore scoffed in disbelief. “Come on, are you kidding me?”

“She’s kind of a nightmare, man,” Anza chimed in.

“Who?” O’Farrell asked. “Shelby?”

Ingrid bit her lips together to keep herself from laughing but brought her fingers up a moment too late as a ghost of a laugh passed through them. Fillmore gaped at her. “What, you too?”

Guilt creeped up her neck, leaving her speechless for a moment, before she held the to-go cup to her rose-colored lips and said, meekly, “Thanks for the coffee?”

He glared at her. “It’s not coffee,” he snapped as she took her first sip and tasted, not coffee, but her favorite seasonal café drink: cinnamon apple cider. She stared down her nose at the top of the cup in shock. He’d only been there with her a few times, and only once during the fall season… how had he remembered?

Her heart warmed, and she felt that heat start to rise to her cheeks, but she quickly swallowed the drink, looked down, and smacked her lips together. “Right…”

“Fillmore, we’re sorry—" Tehama started, but Fillmore held a hand up to stop her.

“Why the hell are you guys so down on her?” he asked sharply.

“She treats you like you’re just a hot piece of ass,” Karen explained, crossing her arms, “and, while we all know that you are, you could do better.”

“And she’s also crazy,” Anza added plainly, which earned a nod of agreement from Tehama. “Like, batshit crazy.”

“I actually did some research and I definitely think she could be bipolar.”

Fillmore gawked at her. “I cannot believe what I’m hearing right now!”

Meanwhile, Ingrid sipped on her cider cautiously processing what was unfolding in front of her. Did she disagree with anything the others had to say? Absolutely not. If she were being candid, she’d had doubts about that girl and her mental stability (or lack thereof) weeks ago when she and Fillmore first crossed paths. He was absolutely crazy for her, and, while he’d had his share of girlfriends over the past two years, that girl was different. Disgust sat like a brick in her stomach when she watched her and Fillmore together, or listened to him tell Ingrid everything he learned about her. It was much like that feeling she got in her gut when she knew that something wasn’t right, but not exactly. She just… she didn’t like the way that girl treated him, and she especially didn’t like the way he looked at her.

But, while Ingrid couldn’t wrap her mind around why, her best friend still liked her. That she couldn’t change, no matter how much she didn’t like it and, as much as she agreed with her friends, she didn’t like the way they were expressing their disapproval in that moment.

“What if we all went together?” she blurted.

Her four friends stopped speaking altogether and stared at her, dumbfounded. Karen broke the silence and asked, “What?”

Ingrid self-consciously brought her knees up to her chest, clutching the cup safely between them, and shrugged. “We could make a week of it.” She paused, trying to think of something she could sell them on. “Figure out costumes, get dressed up together, all that. It could be fun.”

Karen stared at her, slack-jawed. “Are you high?”

“I don’t think so,” Fillmore answered, casting Karen a sideways glance, “I think it’s just the weather.”

Ingrid rolled her eyes. “Look, I just think we should give it a shot. We hardly ever go to parties, and I could use a night out. Unless someone has any other ideas?”

Fillmore’s eyebrows furrowed together, and he held a hand up. “Wait, what about Ariella?” he asked. “Isn’t Halloween usually your night?”

Ingrid held her breath for a moment before answering, swallowing the sadness that tried to sneak up on her. “Yeah, but she’s not coming home for it this year. Studying for finals.”

“Already?” Ingrid nodded. “Dawg, I’m sorry.”

“I know what we could do!” Danny exclaimed as his hand shot in the air, his blue eyes twinkling with excitement.

“For the last time, Danny, we’re not going trick or treating,” Anza told him, rubbing his eyes. “We’re all a little too old for that.”

“No, I meant for costumes!” he corrected with an eyeroll. “We should go as…” he paused, and, for dramatic effect, drum rolled the top of Anza’s computer. “…the Harry Potter gang!”

A chorus of four “no’s” made O’Farrell’s smile drop to the floor.

“If we go to this party – and that’s a big ‘if’—” she pointed a stern finger in Fillmore’s direction, “—we are not doing Harry Potter,” Karen said.

“Why not?” Danny cried. “I make a great Ron Weasley!”

Karen shrugged. “I don’t look good in capes.”

“Well, fine, what about the Scooby gang?”

Anza squinted at him, curiously. “Dude, where do you come up with these ideas?”

Danny shrugged. “They solve mysteries, we solve mysteries, there’s five of them, and five of us. It’s perfect!”

Fillmore crossed his arms and shook his head. “I think I’m speaking for everyone here when I say hell, no.”

“Oh, I don’t know, why not?” Ingrid asked him and let her legs fall from the chair before they could cramp. “The real-life parallels would be humorously ironic.”

“Um, hello?” Fillmore held up his arms. “The gang is all white, and I’m the only brown guy here.” Ingrid rolled her smiling eyes and sipped her drink. “Slap a collar on me, and Scooby-Doo and I could be twins, and I’m not about to be your guys’ literal bitch for the night.”

Ingrid swallowed and shot back, “Just Shelby’s, right?”

Fillmore’s jaw dropped as everyone erupted into laughter, but Ingrid just smiled at him coyly, despite the sour taste that saying her name left in her mouth. “Damn, mama,” he finally said once the laughter died down. “The weather really does change you.”

She shrugged and lifted her cup up in the air towards him. “Did I ever thank you for the not-coffee?” He grinned with a shake of his head as she took a sip.

“What about you, Sass Master, you got any ideas?” he asked her. He sat back on his desk, lifted his leg to prop his elbow up on his knee, and stared down at her expectantly with those mischievous brown eyes which, for a moment, almost made Ingrid choke on her cider, but she quickly gulped and set her drink down. Her heart raced in her chest, and she turned the cup around rhythmically with her fingers, puzzled. What was that, Third? Staring down the label on the paper cup, she quickly flicked through her memory for the answer to his question, and the tape in her head stopped on a memory from a few years prior: the memory of a certain yearbook.

“You got nothing, huh?” Fillmore prodded with a cheeky grin.

Ingrid shook her head and tapped the bottom of the cup on the top of her desk. “We could do the Breakfast Club,” she suggested, her lips curling into a smile that nearly matched Fillmore’s own as he shook his head in recognition.

“I knew I was gonna regret showing you that,” he muttered as he rubbed from the top of his bald head to the back of his neck.

Karen, however, clapped and ooh-ed in excitement. “Ingrid that’s perfect! But I call dibs on Claire,” she demanded with a wink. “There’s no way you could pull off that pink.” Ingrid nodded her thanks as Anza lifted his hand and called Andrew, and Danny called Brian, after a short protest that the idea was “anything but original”. Ingrid then turned back to her partner, who was still smiling at her, and her heart leapt.

“Looks like that makes me Bender,” he said softly.

She smiled back at him. “Looks like dreams do come true,” she replied as the warning bell rang over their heads. Around them, everyone shuffled either towards the door or back to their desks, and Fillmore stood up and reached for his things, turning towards the others.

“So, that means we’re going, right?” he asked, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

With a flip of her black and pink-streaked hair, Karen looked at him over her shoulder and said, “Of course we’re going, babe. I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to get you drunk so I can finally take advantage of you.”

“Oh, don’t threaten me with a good time, baby girl,” he laughed as he walked past her and towards the door, followed a little too closely by Anza, urgency prominent in his steps as he caught up to him. As she picked up her bag and her cup, Ingrid couldn’t help but feel for him. She didn’t know if the jealousy was relatively new to him or how she didn’t see it before, but she knew it had to sting.

She rushed up to Tehama who had already made her way to the door. “Hey, Karen,” she started, before she could stop herself. As she turned, Ingrid leaned closer to her and continued quietly, “maybe you should ease up on the whole ‘flirting with Fillmore’ thing.”

Karen pouted and said, “Aw, are you jealous?”

Panic shot through Ingrid’s chest and her mind froze. A split second passed before she managed to stutter out in a pitch slightly higher than normal, “W-what? No, I’m not jealous!”

“Girl, chill!” Karen chuckled and swatted Ingrid’s arm playfully. “I’m just messing with you, what gives?”

“I’m not jealous,” Ingrid repeated, trying to calm her racing heart. Karen opened her mouth to speak again, but Ingrid cut her off with, “But I think Joe is.” Karen blinked at her, her mouth agape, but Ingrid hurried off in the other direction as heat continued to creep into her cheeks. She clutched her drink tightly in her hand as she turned the corner. Jesus, Third, what’s gotten into you? she berated herself and took a deep breath.

She hadn’t expected Karen to ask her something like that. Everyone knew she and Fillmore were just partners, and close friends. Being close friends came with the territory of working together for so long, but that was it. Nothing more.

Suddenly, as she drank her cider, Ingrid’s mind flashed back to earlier that morning, when she’d noticed that Fillmore had somehow remembered from the previous autumn what her drink of choice for the season was, and how it made her heart flutter that he’d gone out of his way to do that for her. And then to the way his warm eyes playfully bored into hers, how comfortable being with him felt, and how damn good that leather jacket had been looking on him lately.

She looked up from her drink just in time to see Fillmore and her down the hallway, lips locked, her fists possessively gripping the collar of said jacket, and, suddenly, Ingrid felt nauseous. She slowed to a stop among the crowd, the sweet cider suddenly bitter on her tongue, but she couldn’t look away from them because, finally, it all started making sense to her. The “not-quite-a-gut-feeling” she had about her, the disgust she felt when she watched them, the disapproval of their relationship…

Ingrid Third was jealous.

xXxXx

Halloween Afternoon

It had been a long week for Ingrid Third. She sat up straight in her chair, rolled her aching shoulders back, and looked down, desperate to relieve the tension so she could focus. Granted, she didn’t “need” to focus much, with a photographic memory and all, but she could definitely use the distraction. Mrs. Cornwall droned on at the front of the class as Ingrid settled back into her seat and stifled a yawn.

Needless to say, she’d been busy. It turned out that trying to keep up the Third sister tradition without the other sister was much more trying than she’d anticipated, especially considering she added to her plate by suggesting coordinating costumes. Monday night, she and Karen hit every thrift store they could to hunt for costume pieces but didn’t find much success until the next night. The day before, Vallejo caught wind of a possible sabotage attempt on the Hocus Pocus Club’s Witches Convention, so he put her and Fillmore on the scent to test its viability. They’d spent half the evening tracking down leads but came up dry. At the end of each night, Ingrid stayed up as late as she could handle decorating her house inside and out for the big night.

And, with her recently discovered… well, “fond” feelings towards her partner, staying focused was, to say the least, rather difficult for her, despite her best efforts to keep her plate full and her mind busy. Ingrid stared out the window to her left, giving up on trying to follow along. She’d already read through the trig chapter last night and the idea of reliving it drained her.

She bit her lip as she watched the feathery clouds glide through the sky. It was ridiculous, she thought, to be feeling that way for her partner. Of course, they’d been through a lot together, and they’d known each other for a long time, but they were just friends. They had to be. She couldn’t have feelings for Fillmore… Maybe she was jealous for some other subconscious reason. Maybe because he was spending less time with Ingrid since Shelby came around, or maybe she wasn’t jealous at all, just annoyed at how much he talked about her. Or even how distracted he’s been lately, or how many times she’d finished his paperwork for him so he could go meet her.

Ingrid rubbed her eyes. Yeah, go ahead, Third. Lie to yourself. She rested her chin in the palm of her hand and sighed, willing the butterflies in her stomach to fly away as she thought of him. Why was it coming up now? How long had she been ignoring it? When did she stop seeing him as her best friend and start seeing him as a love interest? She squeezed her eyes shut as her head began to ache with unanswered questions. For the smartest girl in the Midwest, she was clueless, and she hated it.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She sat up straight and turned her attention back to the front of the room, expecting to see Mrs. Cornwall eyeballing her, but the woman had her back to her. Her stomach twisted, but she stretched her arms out from her sides, cautiously scanning the room as she did so, when she saw a figure glaring at her through the small window in the door. Her chest pumped full of adrenaline as she quickly pieced together the blond hair, the sneering lips, and the narrow blue eyes: Shelby.

Ingrid avoided eye contact and smoothly refaced the front of the room, picked up her pencil, and pretended to take notes as her pulse raced through her body. How did she know her schedule? It’s kept private for officer’s security. Had she been following her? She quickly scanned the few people around her to double check if they were any one of the people Shelby had a prior sour altercation with – maybe she simply imagined that Shelby was looking at her, when she was really looking at someone else – but she made no connections. Ingrid glared at the board in front of her. What the hell would she want with me? Risking a sideways glance behind her, she found the doorway empty and her white-knuckled grip on her pencil eased up. Deeply exhaling the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, she sank back into her chair and tapped the pencil eraser on her notebook, puzzled. She knew she’d exhausted herself this week, but to the point of hallucinating? Doubtful. So, what was that about?

The shrill ring of the bell signaled the end of class, kickstarting an adrenaline rush Ingrid only felt during a chase, but this time, as she gathered her things with her eyes glued to the door, she felt like the perp. With a deep breath to steady her nerves, she started for the door with the rest of her classmates, effortlessly ducking into the crowd. She quickly weaved through upperclassmen mindlessly heading to the cafeteria with her belongings close, making herself as small as possible, despite the pounding in her chest she worried everyone could hear. She didn’t dare lose her focus by looking over her shoulder. Just keep going, she told herself.

She paused – not in step, but in thought. Maybe that was the reason she felt so strangely towards Shelby. Maybe, deep down, a part of her knew there was something sketchy about her. She rolled her eyes at herself. Okay, one of the reasons, she let herself admit. Maybe, just as suddenly as Ingrid had caught onto her own feelings, Shelby figured her out as well and that was why she was following her. She was possessive. That would make sense. Ingrid shook her head and slipped through a small group. She expected her path to her locker from there to be clear, but her stomach jumped when she saw the very girl she was trying to shake leaning on it with her arms crossed, and her fake French tips tapping her bicep.

“You’re a hard girl to find,” she commented with pursed pink lips, glaring down at Ingrid and tapping her three-inch heels impatiently on the linoleum tiles.

Ingrid set her jaw and stopped in front of her, shoving her deceptively steady hands in her pockets. “Looks like I’m doing my job.” She pointed at her locker. “You mind?”

Shelby didn’t flinch. Her mouth formed a straight line before she ran her tongue along her front teeth underneath her lip, eying Ingrid head to toe with judgment clouding her icy blue eyes. Ingrid’s heart rate started to slow down, and she matched Shelby’s eyes with a narrow glare of her own. She was used to stare-downs; comfortable with them, even. A few more seconds passed before Shelby pushed off the wall with her shoulder and stepped back. “I don’t like you, you know.”

Ingrid scoffed and stepped to her locker. “Oh, you don’t?” she asked, tossing Shelby an eyeroll before quickly spinning her combination. “You sure had me fooled.” She pulled the lock off and started to swing the door open when Shelby slammed it shut with a widespread hand. Ingrid glared at her. “I need to get in there.”

Shelby towered over her, her blond curls casting a dark shadow across her high cheekbones, and she pointed an accusing finger in Ingrid’s face. “No, you need to watch your step.”

Ingrid’s heart shifted into overdrive as the threat reached her ears. The pulse in her neck throbbed with anticipation and she squared her shoulders to face the fuming girl in front of her. “I think you need to step off, Shelby,” she warned, clutching the lock in her fist with renewed strength. In the back of her mind, she raced through every maneuver Fillmore, a self-proclaimed “kung fu master”, had ever gone over with her, and she almost chuckled at the irony of possibly having to use one on his current girlfriend who clenched her tiny fists.

“I do not want you distracting my boyfriend at my party tonight,” Shelby stated, pointing at herself before directing her finger back at Ingrid, “so you will not be attending.”

Ingrid crossed her arms over her notebook and placed a contemplative finger on the corner of her lip. “You know, considering he’s my best friend and he’s the one who invited me, you’d think he’d be more distracted with my absence than with my presence. And, besides,” she paused, swinging her locker back open and sliding her notebook inside, “without me there, our costumes wouldn’t make sense.”

Shelby froze, and her hands started to shake. “What costumes?”

“It was Fillmore’s idea,” Ingrid lied, smoothly. She reached down for her spare lock – she didn’t want to risk Shelby trying to break in – and her lunch box, tossing the original lock on top of her books before standing up straight and smirking at her. “You should ask him.”

Shelby trembled with fury. “I better not see you tonight, Ingrid, I swear to god—”

“What if you do?” Ingrid asked with an amused smile and she shut and locked her locker. “Are you gonna call the cops?” Shelby stepped toward her and opened her mouth to speak but Ingrid swiped her hand in the air and stepped back. “Look, I don’t know what your problem is with me, but, whatever it is, maybe you should take it up with Fillmore. That way you can make sure he doesn’t slip up and invite me somewhere you don’t want me to be.”

Shelby placed her fists on her hips. “You aren’t wanted there,” she repeated, punctuating every word. Ingrid continued walking backwards and splayed her arms out by her side.

“It’s too late now,” she told her, only turning her back to the fuming teenager once she felt a safe distance away. “I’ve got nothing better to do,” she called over her shoulder.

“You don’t want to cross me, Ingrid!” Shelby shouted, but Ingrid didn’t look back. “I’ll make you regret it!” The echoes of her shrill voice were drowned out by the bell ringing above their heads.

As Ingrid turned the corner out of Shelby’s sight, a shiver shot down her spine, but she sauntered coolly towards the stairs that would lead her to the cafeteria. She glanced over her shoulder – just to double check she wasn’t following – and took a deep breath to slow down the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Confronting a perp was much different than confronting someone who had personal issues with you. Personally, she preferred the former. Ingrid knew Shelby had a checkered past littered with anger issues (she didn’t dig up every single file she could find on Shelby Hanson once Fillmore showed interest in her or anything like that) but witnessing it firsthand… she shuddered again.

Shelby was simply jealous. A jealous beau of Fillmore’s wasn’t a new situation for Ingrid, and she knew she could handle it but, as she reminded herself, this time things were just different. More so, her feelings were different. As if that wasn’t confusing enough for her, Shelby’s sudden display of aggression sparked from an unknown event was enough to send her mind spinning.

Ingrid crossed her arms, warily listening for the click of Shelby’s heels. She hated that she couldn’t grow to like her. She’d never seen Fillmore fall for someone so quickly and, despite her newfound feelings, as his best friend, she wanted to like her for him. But if she hadn’t made that nearly impossible before she stalked her to her locker and threatened her, it was certainly never going to happen. The jealous part of Ingrid rejoiced. Now, all she had to do was show up at that party to endure whatever “regret” Shelby would dish out and Fillmore would see how terrible she was.

Ingrid’s heart grew heavy and she faltered. What kind of best friend would she be if she did that? Fillmore was captivated by her… doing that to him could break him. She could’ve argued that a true friend would be honest as soon as possible, but he hadn’t believed any of his friends up until now. Who’s to say that would change? Especially if it was Ingrid’s word against Shelby’s? Worry creeped up her stomach, leaving a trail of nervous butterflies in its wake. She would be risking a lot by coming clean to him.

Suddenly, staying home with her father to carry out part of their family traditions sounded much better than going to that party. Her jaw trembled as the adrenaline started to subside and she bit her bottom lip to keep it from showing. Yeah, not going to the party would mean that Shelby would win, but suddenly it didn’t matter to her whether she won or lost.

She only cared if Fillmore did.

xXxXx

Once she was certain there were no more disguised kids on their way up, Ingrid shut the door with a moan and dropped the smile she’d plastered on her face. After setting the half empty bowl of candy on the tiny table next to the front door, she trudged back to her spot on the couch and stretched before plopping down with a heavy sigh. On screen, the Sanderson sisters ran into the house of “Satan” and Ingrid yawned as she settled comfortably into the cushions.

As conflicted as she’d been throughout the day about what she would do that night, and as much as she wished she were with her friends, relaxing on her own was proving to be a good idea. Her father was working late, so she had the house to herself to play creepy music, brew some apple cider, and, most importantly, to think.

Her phone buzzed on the pillow next to her and she glanced over at it. It was Karen – again – telling her they were on their way to Shelby’s and she wanted to see Ingrid there. “We can’t be the Breakfast Club without an Allison” was her and Fillmore’s argument when she broke the news to them earlier that she decided not to go. She stood her ground no matter how they tried to sway her, but, truthfully, it was harder to convince herself not to go than for them to do the opposite.

A knot formed in her chest that forced a lump into her throat and her eyes started to burn. This was her favorite day of the year, and her friends were enjoying the night together without her, even though it was her encouragement alone that convinced them to go. She hugged her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them, gulping down the lump in her throat and focusing on the TV. This was for the best. She was a big girl. She could handle a holiday by herself.

The door opened behind her and she quickly dried her eyes as her father called out her name. “I’m in here,” she replied and braced herself for a question she wasn’t sure she was ready to answer. She tried to seem relaxed – she crossed her legs, grabbed the bowl of popcorn from the table, and brought it to her lap just in time for her father to appear in the doorway, tilting his head.

“Ingrid, why aren’t you dressed up?” he asked as he placed his briefcase and portable file case on the ground next to his worn green recliner. “Shouldn’t you be at that party by now?” He placed his hands on his hips and his eyebrows knitted together as he took in the scene around him: Ingrid was clad in Halloween pajamas, and had sunk into the couch with her hand in the popcorn bowl and she had a steaming cup of apple cider on the table in front of her… she was definitely not ready for a party.

Ingrid shrugged with one shoulder. “Yeah, I’m just…” she paused and looked past him at the wall to buy time to scan through the lines she rehearsed in her head. “I’m just not feeling up to it tonight,” she finished and popped a piece of popcorn into her mouth.

Nathan raised his bushy eyebrows. “‘Not feeling up to it’?”

Ingrid nodded and swallowed. “Honestly, I haven’t really been sleeping well lately, and we’ve had so much work to do at school this week on top of getting everything ready for tonight, but now I’m just worn out,” she said, looking back at the TV. That wasn’t an entire lie. She had done a lot this week. Halloween week was one of the busiest of the year for the Safety Patrol with the influx in mischief and the resulting paperwork tended to be strenuous and draining. Ingrid, of course, had already finished all of it (and some of Fillmore’s even), but, having added on to her own plate to avoid thinking about her new feelings for her six-foot-plus-tall-leather-jacket-wearing partner, she truly was worn out. But, she didn’t want her father to know that.

Nathan squinted at her with wondering eyes, but his face remained blank as he said, “I don’t believe you.”

Her heartrate kicked up in her chest and her head shot over to him. “Why not?”

Nathan exhaled and walked over to the couch opposite of Ingrid. “Honey, I know that you’ve been busy lately, but you’ve also spent a lot of time to getting your outfit for tonight just right,” he said as he sat down and rested his elbows on his knees. Ingrid silently cursed and looked down at the bowl in her lap as her cheeks grew hot. He always paid more attention than she gave him credit for. “Come on, last night, you were in that bathroom for three hours trying to figure out how to get that kind of wavy look in your hair that Allison has. I haven’t seen you that dedicated about something not work or school related probably since last Halloween.”

“Yeah, I know, but—”

“But, nothing, Ingrid,” he interrupted her with a raised hand, “you can’t tell me that after all that preparation you weren’t excited about going, because I could see it in your eyes.” Ingrid bit her lip and ran her thumb along the grooves of the bowl. Times like these, she remembered where she got her intuition from, and she hated being on the receiving end of it, because his intuition was almost always right. He clasped his hands together and tilted his head down to try and meet her eyes. “Is everything okay?”

The lump found its way back into her throat, but she gulped it down and looked up at the TV screen, trying to find the right words to say. She shrugged and grabbed the bowl by the rim, transferring it from her lap back to the table so she could pull her legs back up to her chest. “I mean, I guess. The problem isn’t really with me,” she admitted quietly.

Her dad shrugged. “So, what’s the problem?”

Ingrid couldn’t help but roll her eyes as she said, “Shelby,” and suddenly, disgust swept over her body like a humid summer gust, sticky and lingering.

“Ah, Shelby,” Nathan said with a nod and a grin. “Jealous, are we?”

Ingrid’s jaw dropped, and hot adrenaline exploded in her chest. “Why does everyone think I’m jealous?” she exclaimed, defensively throwing up her arms. “I’m not jealous, she’s just terrible!”

Nathan laughed at her outburst, but asked, “What makes her so terrible, then?”

Ingrid crossed her arms as she settled back into the couch. She didn’t want to sound dramatic and make him worry, but, truthfully, it would be nice to tell someone. Just to get it out of her own head, and she knew she could trust her dad. She sighed before she finally admitted, “She threatened me today.”

It was Nathan’s turn to gape at her. “She what?”

Ingrid nodded. “It wasn’t direct, but her message was clear.”

“What did she say?” He turned towards her and stretched his arm across the back of the couch.

“She said that she didn’t want me to get in her way with Fillmore tonight, so I was officially uninvited and that I would regret it if I crossed her.”

Nathan’s mouth formed a straight line as he processed. “Wow.”

Ingrid scoffed and reached for her mug. “Right?”

“And you believe her?” he asked as she took a sip. “I mean, you think it’s credible?”

“I’ve seen her record,” she answered with a shrug as she wrapped her fingers around the mug. “She’s got a lot of disciplinary issues, so I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“And you aren’t going because you haven’t told Neil.”

“Is that a statement or a question?”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s a question I already know the answer to because I know you.” Ingrid set down her mug and rubbed her eyes. He really did know her. Too well, almost. “Honey, why haven’t you told him?”

“Maybe because everyone thinks I’m ‘jealous’!” she snapped, glaring hard at him, and he pulled back with wide eyes. “Literally all of us have told him that she’s bad news but he doesn’t see it and he just won’t listen. The only way he’d believe us would be for him to see it with his own two eyes, not my word against hers.”

“Ingrid, you’re his best friend,” he pointed out cautiously. “Don’t you think this is something he needs to know?”

“Of course it is, but—” the lump in her throat stopped her from continuing, and she turned away from him, pushing her fingers into the corners of her eyes to stop the tears from coming. She took a deep, slow breath as all the Halloweens she spent here with Ari zipped through her mind, dredging up all the joy she missed having with her. She sniffed and dropped her hands, but kept her eyes closed as the memories played out on her eyelids. “Halloween is supposed to be the one day of the year where everything is perfect.” She opened her eyes and started at the purple lights and black garland she’d strategically placed around the base of the TV. “And I don’t want to mess it up for everyone.”

“Even if it means messing it up for yourself?”

“Exactly,” she responded immediately without taking her eyes off the lights. She remembered the day she and Ariella bought those lights: November 1st, three years prior. The weather was perfect outside the café – which soon became Ingrid’s favorite – where they drank their ciders outside before heading to the store. The lights had been clearanced out, and they grabbed as many boxes as they could carry to the checkout without hesitation, giggling with excitement like little school girls.

“You really miss your sister, don’t you?” Nathan asked, snapping her out of the memory. Ingrid nodded and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I miss her too, kiddo. But,” he nudged her shoulder, “you know what she’d think of all this?”

“That I should knock her teeth out?”

“That you should go,” he corrected with a grin. Ingrid, beside herself, smiled along. “She wouldn’t want you moping around here all night.” Ingrid sighed, looking at her father through the corners of her eyes. She knew he was right, but that dilemma nagged at the back of her mind, but he shook his head. “Don’t worry about telling Fillmore anything tonight, you just need to try and have fun.”

“You think so?” she asked as the doorbell rang.

Nathan pointed at her. “I know so.” He stood up and turned towards the door. “If you haven’t disappeared upstairs by the time I get back, I’ll drag you up there myself,” he said and tossed a wink over his shoulder.

Ingrid sighed, but she felt a little lighter. He was right. She didn’t necessarily have to tell Fillmore anything tonight, not unless it came up. And she truly did want to go; after all, she spent hours perfecting her costume. Ally Sheedy would’ve been proud. Her heart fluttered with excitement, uncertainty, and adrenaline all at once, launching her off the couch and toward the stairs as a chorus of “trick or treat’s” reached her ears. When she reached the top of the stairs, she turned around and watched her dad hand them all candy and compliment their costumes.

“Thanks, Dad,” she murmured with a soft smile before dashing towards her room.

xXxXx

An hour and a half later, Ingrid dodged a pair of bolting zombies as she approached what she could only describe as a mansion, which was filled to the brim with dozens upon dozens of teenagers she vaguely recognized. Some were loitering on the porch deeply engrossed in conversation while others were spread out on the front lawn, and many, if not all of them, clutched red solo cups in their hands, swaying their bodies against each other to the beat of the music spilling out from the open windows. As she walked up to the front porch, she noticed a boy passed out on the stairs already, and she glanced at her watch. It was barely past eight o’clock, and her eyes widened in shock. Must be some party.

Her heart raced as she ascended the stairs and squeezed her way between two couples making out by the front door. It was too late to turn back, but she couldn’t fight the surge of adrenaline – or, perhaps more accurately, anxiety – pulsing through her chest to the tips of her fingers as the thought of provoking Shelby crossed her mind once more. Ingrid truly didn’t want to start a fight, or do anything to hurt Fillmore, but her father was right. Their relationship wasn’t her responsibility. He might not have said exactly that, but he helped her recognize it. She ran a nervous hand through her loosely curled hair and took a deep breath as she reached for the doorknob.

Ingrid grimaced as the volume exploded the second she swung open the door, a cacophony of voices, pumping bass, and footsteps from the floor above her. She hadn’t expected the crowd. The crowds at other house parties she’d been to were thinner and calmer; more of a casual get-together than a full-blown party.

This was a full-blown party.

Right off the bat, she spotted three different slutty nurses, one of which was taking a Jell-O shot out of a syringe from an undead doctor, and not far behind them a pair of Harley Quinns, a mummy, a schoolgirl, and suddenly her eyes started burning. She didn’t consider that it wasn’t going to be just any party. It was a Halloween party, and she was mentally unprepared. Right on cue, she heard a crash of glass in the other room and flinched as people quieted around her for a split second before erupting in “ooh’s” and laughs. Ingrid shook her head and pushed her way further into the house, disregarding her racing heart telling her to go the opposite way. She didn’t see any of her friends by the time she made it to the opposite side of the house, so she pulled out her phone to text Karen, but she never got the chance to.

“Oh my god, you came!” Karen squealed from somewhere on her right, but before she could turn and see exactly where, Karen wrapped her arms around her and squeezed tight. Ingrid gasped in shock before laughing it off.

“Yeah, I just needed a nap,” she quipped as Karen let go of her and Anza appeared, clad in only a blue tank top and jeans. Ingrid pointed at him with a curious smile. “Where’s your jacket?”

Behind Karen, he rolled his eyes and jerked his thumb in her direction, but she immediately shook her head and placed both hands, her left clutching a red cup, to her chest. “I didn’t spill anything on it,” she claimed, staring straight into Ingrid’s eyes, but Anza grinned down at her and shook his head.

“Oh, that’s right, you leaned over and accidentally dumped it on me.” It was her turn to roll her eyes, and he twirled a strand of her fake red hair with his finger to irritate her. “That’s totally different.”

“I told you, I’m not that drunk,” she explained as she swatted his hand away, struggling to speak over the music. “I was pushed into you!”

“By who?” he asked, lifting his hands and frantically wiggling his fingers. “A ghost?”

Ingrid’s heart buzzed, not from the bass bouncing in her chest, but from watching them argue. If there was any doubt about it before, the way Anza’s pupils widened as he looked down at Karen dashed any doubt remaining. It was sweet to watch the bickering unfold knowing what she knew. She couldn’t hide the smile it put on her face.

But, she gracefully diverted her attention. “Where are Fillmore and O’Farrell?”

Karen gasped, and she snapped her head from Anza back to Ingrid. “You’re right!” She grabbed Ingrid’s bicep tightly. “We need group pictures!”

Anza jerked his head behind him. “I think I saw Danny back there playing Doctors and Nurses with Donna Hill. And, uh,” he leaned over Karen’s shoulder and cupped a hand by his mouth, and Ingrid leaned closer, “last I saw, Fillmore went that way—” he pointed down the hallway in the direction she came from, “—looking for Shelby, but I’d be careful if I were you. They got into it.”

Ingrid groaned. “Do I want to know?”

“She got mad that he didn’t wear his part of their couples costume,” he explained. “Especially when she realized this was all your idea.”

Karen lifted her cup to her lips and sang, “Looks like someone’s jealous,” before taking a sip of her drink.

Ingrid cringed. So, Fillmore ratted her out. Unwittingly, she knew, but that just might have made everything worse. Her dad was right. She should have told him. “How wonderful,” she complained with an eyeroll. “I’ll find him, you guys look for O’Farrell.” She started to walk in the direction she came. “Meet outside?”

“You got it,” the partners chorused, and they started to bicker again before Ingrid turned her back and began her search.

Ingrid adjusted the patterned scarf around her neck, feeling too hot under two-plus layers of clothes. The dark, oversized sweater, midthigh skirt, and leggings were perfect while she walked to the party but, whether from the amount of people in one building or the anxiety building in her chest, it was all a little too much. She adjusted the cloth messenger bag hanging from her shoulder which suddenly felt all too heavy as she weaved back through the crowd.

Her stomach twisted into knots and she stopped to look over her shoulder. However, while she didn’t see any trace of Shelby, the feeling in her gut worsened. She looked around her. Could it be all the drunken minors surrounding her, either taking one shot too many or locking lips with people they shouldn’t be? Maybe just all the unfamiliar faces in an unfamiliar place? Her chest and stomach fluttered, but she knew it wasn’t anxiety; something was wrong. And that was when she heard him shout.

Her heart kicked into overdrive, pounding against her chest as she forced her way through the thickening crowd, drawn to the sound of conflict in the air like moths to flames. Shelby’s shrill voice cut through the noise like a knife and, although Ingrid couldn’t tell what she was screaming about, she didn’t need to. As she strained to look above the crowd, Ingrid saw her repeatedly hitting Fillmore, who had his arms up protecting his face, with the side of her fist.

Something snapped in Ingrid. Adrenaline pumping, she clenched her fists and, before she could stop herself, she burst through the crowd, seething with fury. She grabbed Shelby by the shoulders, pulled her away from Fillmore and, before Shelby could register who pulled her away, Ingrid launched a fist at her face which sent her to the floor.

“Ingrid—” Fillmore shouted as he grabbed her by the waist and pushed her behind him, gaping furiously at her, “—what the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Get out!” Shelby cried from the floor, where multiple spectators had rallied around her to help her up from the floor. She held the back of her hand to her mouth, which was dripping blood, but Ingrid glared down at her mercilessly. While the crowd had completely silenced, the music was still pumping around them, which casted an eerie tension over the living room, and only then did Ingrid begin to process what just happened.

She stared down at her throbbing fist, which was still clenched and trembling with fury, in total shock. She’d never been angry enough to punch someone before. But, looking between Shelby, who was curled on the floor, and Fillmore, who didn’t know who to look at, she worried that, while it seemed Shelby was trying to hurt him, Ingrid might’ve been the one who crossed the line.

Fillmore took a hesitant step towards Shelby but seemed to think better of it. After a moment, he turned to head for the door with a frustrated sigh but stopped to glare at Ingrid. His narrowed eyes bored angrily into her own, their color darker than normal as they flickered in conflict. She felt her own eyes soften as he stared down at her, and she started to say his name, but he pushed past her. She shut her eyes and exhaled with exasperation. That was exactly what she didn’t want to happen tonight. She rushed after him, pushing through the crowd in time to see him stomp out the front door and slam it behind him.

She flung the door open, hoping to find him right there, but he was already halfway across the front lawn. She broke into a jog to catch up to him. “Fillmore, wait—”

He spun around, his face contorted in anger. “What the hell are you even doing here, Ingrid?” he spat, making Ingrid stop in her tracks a few feet away from him. “You were supposed to stay home!”

Ingrid scoffed in disbelief. “Wow,” she started, crossing her arms to try and hide the hurt, “for someone who seemed disappointed when I said I wasn’t gonna show, you seem even more so that I showed up anyway. And just in time to save your ass,” she added with a scowl.

He scoffed, and his jaw dropped. “That’s what you call ‘saving my ass’?” he asked with an outstretched hand towards the house.

“We’re partners, Fillmore, what else was I supposed to do?” she asked with her arms out to her sides. “Stand there and watch her try to beat the crap out of you? You weren’t even trying to defend yourself!”

“Because I couldn’t!”

“Why not? Because she’s a girl?”

“Because I’m black, Ingrid!” he shouted, shaking with anger. Ingrid stepped back, not expecting that kind of answer, but he didn’t give her time to wonder. “Yeah, sometimes I make light of my skin color, just so you guys don’t get uncomfortable, but you guys just don’t get how serious my skin color is.” He stepped towards her and pointed sternly at the front door. “The second that some asshole pulls out his phone and takes a video of a black guy hitting a white girl, it wouldn’t matter what the truth is—” he poked himself hard in the chest. “—I would be the bad guy.” He started listing names with his fingers. “You don’t have to worry about that, Anza doesn’t have to worry about that, even Vallejo doesn’t have to worry about that, but I do, Ingrid. Protecting myself isn’t just about fending off a girl who’s trying to beat the shit out of me. Sometimes, it’s just about being smart, and being careful about how I do it.”

The more he spoke, the worse Ingrid felt. She hadn’t thought about it like that. Although, in her defense, she’d known Fillmore for so long that, sometimes, she didn’t even recall his skin color. He was just Fillmore to her, but, as he pointed out, he’s not, and has never been, “just Fillmore” to the world. Hell, he used to be a delinquent himself, giving into his own stereotype. No one would ever see Fillmore the way that she did. Guilt started to sweep over her, and only got worse when her mind, for a moment, started to wander. He put his leather-gloved hands on top of his head, making his white long sleeve shirt stretch tightly over the grooves of his chest and he closed his eyes with a heavy sigh. His frayed red flannel loosely hung off him, accentuating the V-shape of his torso as he struggled to take a deep breath. Jesus, Third, now is not the time, she berated herself as her cheeks grew hot. Shame settled like a brick in her stomach, but something else still nagged at her, and she quickly refocused.

“You’re right. That hadn’t even crossed my mind,” she started, crossing her arms again, and he looked at her with softer eyes. “But, if you were in a spot where you didn’t think—or, couldn’t—” she corrected herself, to which Fillmore nodded his acknowledgement, “—defend yourself, why are you mad at me for doing it for you? I’m your partner and your best friend, Fillmore, that’s what I’m here for.”

He shook his head, more at himself than at her, and dropped his arms. “I’m not mad at you, mama.”

Relief washed over her when he called her that. Fillmore couldn’t be truly angry at her and still call her “mama”. And, of course, she loved it when he called her that. He didn’t even call Karen that. It was her nickname. And only hers. So, Ingrid shrugged and waited for him to continue, but he stared down at the ground like it would help him out. So, she spoke up again. “I know that she’s your girlfriend and all, but—”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

Ingrid blinked. Did she hear that correctly? “What?”

He sighed, putting his hands on his hips. “I just—” he paused, trying to look back at her before he continued. She patiently waited with sympathetic eyes, and when he finally met them with his own, they were far from the resentful dark eyes she’d seen earlier. They were sad, storming with hurt. Drawing strength from a deep breath, he breathed out, “I just caught her with someone else.” Ingrid’s jaw and stomach both dropped, while Fillmore nodded. “That was my reaction.”

“What the hell happened?”

Fillmore shrugged. “Beats the hell outta me, girl. She got pissed that I didn’t wear what she wanted me to and ran off, and when I went to go find her an hour later, she was coming out of her bedroom…” he trailed off and ran his fingers over his mouth, debating something. Ingrid raised her eyebrow, urging him to continue, and he said, hesitantly, “Dressed like you, actually.”

Ingrid froze. She hadn’t noticed at first but, now that he said it, she thought back. She was so infuriated seeing Shelby trying to hurt Fillmore that she didn’t even register the girl’s all black outfit: a skin tight, long sleeved dress with a plunging neckline and a hem that barely hit her midthigh, topped off with a tattoo choker and knee-high stiletto boots. She was about to question him – anyone can dress in all black, especially on Halloween – when Fillmore tossed a hat at her. Her hat, to be exact. The black knit beanie had gone missing sometime that afternoon, but she assumed it had fallen out of her bag in the hallway or during class. She’d only mentioned it to Fillmore in passing, and more out of disappointment than suspicion. In fact, there’d been no suspicion at all.

Her head spun. All she could do was stare down at the hat, dumbly, while he continued, “She had me against the wall saying she wanted to ‘make it up to me’—” Ingrid inwardly shuddered at the image that created in her head. “—and a part of me knew she was trying to distract me from something, but I still didn’t expect some random guy to walk out of the room behind her.” Fillmore started to pace and flail his arms around. “And then I put together that she was wearing your hat and that meant she was trying to be you and when I said, ‘what the hell’, she was saying she thought I’d like it and crazy shit like that and—”

Ingrid held up a hand to stop him, even though the thought of him liking the idea of Ingrid in that way made her heart leap. “I made her jealous,” she interrupted. He glanced at her, slowing his pace. “I made her jealous, and she projected it onto you.” He sighed but nodded in agreement and rubbed his eyes. Disgust seeped onto her tongue, rancid and bitter. How could she do that to him? He would’ve done anything for her, and she cheated on him? “God, I’m so glad I hit her,” she muttered, and Fillmore chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck.

“With a damn good cross, too. I’ll give you that,” he admitted, trudging over to the nearest tree. He dropped down to sit at its base with his knees bent, resting his elbows on them and linking his fingers together. “I wonder who taught you that.”

Ingrid smiled. He knew exactly who taught her that. The summer between their eight grade and freshman year, Fillmore dragged Ingrid into his garage almost every night for a date with his punching bag, teaching her how to defend herself in his absence. He was worried that, going into high school, retaliation against the girls in the force might be more extreme than it was at X Middle. He didn’t have any proof or any statistics, but he had a bad feeling.

“There might be times where I might not be there by your side, either when or if you’re undercover, or if you stumble into something at the wrong time, and I might just not get there in time,” he’d told her after an intense lesson on striking combinations. They were sitting outside in his driveway, wielding sweat towels and water bottles, and staring up at the array of stars above them. “I don’t want you ever feeling helpless out there, with or without me. I want you to defend yourself the best you can.”

“You mean you want me to be able to jump in and save your ass whenever you’re in over your head?” she’d asked, trying to lighten the mood. He laughed.

“Yeah,” he said, shoving her lightly with his shoulder. “That too.”

She sighed, wringing the hat in her hands and looking down at him, almost painfully. She hated that Shelby hurt him. The embers of adrenaline threatened to relight at that, but she bit her lip, shoved the hat into her bag, and sat down next to him with her legs crossed. She stared down at her Converse, absentmindedly pulling at the laces. This was the part where, if it was her, Fillmore would say something profound to give her some optimism, but all she could think to say was, “I’m sorry, Fillmore.”

He shrugged and looked up at the starry sky. “I could do better, right?” he half-joked. Ingrid thought back to the group’s discussion in HQ on Monday and bit her lip. She didn’t think he’d taken that to heart.

“No,” she corrected, “you deserve better. There’s a difference.”

Fillmore glanced over at her and flashed her a small smile which she matched with her own. She looked back down at her sneakers and bit her lip. She knew she needed to tell him now. That was her opportunity. It wasn’t like she could complicate their relationship anymore. Her heart raced, but she finally forced out, “Fillmore, I need to tell you something about Shelby.”

He scoffed. “What, that she’s batshit crazy? Yeah, I can see that now.”

“She threatened me today,” she blurted.

Fillmore’s expression didn’t change as he looked down at her. Their eyes locked, and he stared blankly into hers as if he was waiting for the punchline. After a minute, when it didn’t come, his eyes darkened. “What?” he asked.

“It wasn’t direct, but she told me I would regret it if I came tonight, and I didn’t want to ruin everyone’s Halloween, or your relationship for that matter,” she rapidly explained, turning towards him slightly, but he simply gaped at her. Ingrid picked at her blacked out nails, hardly registering the throbbing in her knuckles, as seconds passed quietly between them. “Fillmore, say something,” she finally said, unable to stand the silent stare down.

“You didn’t tell me,” he gasped, slightly shaking his head with sad eyes.

“And I should have, I know that…” she trailed off, unsure of what was going through his head. Typically, Ingrid could read him like a book, but in that moment, he was a foreign language she couldn’t read, and it drove her mad. He finally broke his gaze away from her and leaned his head back against the bark to stare at the sky with a heavy sigh.

“I just can’t believe all this,” he finally muttered. Ingrid bit her lip, fighting the urge to wrap her arms around him and hold him. Fillmore was hardly ever rendered speechless. She couldn’t imagine the turmoil churning in his head, and she wanted to make it all stop. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she told him, but he shook his head.

“No, it’s not, Ingrid. She threatened you, she—”

“And she cheated on you,” Ingrid interrupted, poking him hard in the shoulder for emphasis. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I didn’t exactly give her a chance to make true on her promise. I don’t think you need to be sorry about threats to me that I didn’t let her carry out.”

“I still am, though.” He looked at her with heavy eyes and extended one of his hands to her. “I’m sorry.”

Ingrid sighed. They both knew neither would win such an argument. They were much too protective of the other, and much too understanding. Ingrid reached up and grasped his hand, giving it a light squeeze. “So am I,” she whispered. She shot him a light smile before he averted his attention to their intertwined hands and took a deep breath.

“I can’t believe you guys were right,” he murmured in shock. “She really is crazy.”

“Batshit,” she agreed. He chuckled and looked back over at her with a smile mirroring her own, but before either of them could say anything else, someone called their names off to their right. They quickly let go of each other’s hand and leaned over, spotting Anza and Karen dragging a delirious Danny O’Farrell in between them.

“We finally found this poor little guy,” Anza said, patting Danny lightly on the back as he hiccupped. “I think he took one too many Jell-O shots from ‘Nurse Hill’.”

The boy grinned, a little lopsided, and held his hands up. “I mean, I feel great,” he slurred.

Karen rolled her eyes but couldn’t hold back a grin. “We should probably take him home, but we still need pictures.” She glanced between Fillmore and Ingrid. “Any ideas?”

Ingrid shrugged. “We can go to my place,” she suggested as Fillmore stood up. “It’s still pretty early, so I don’t think my dad would mind.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Fillmore said, offering his hand to Ingrid, who took it, and he pulled her up. “I’ll drive.”

Ingrid smirked as she settled on her feet. “With what keys?”

The four others stared at her, puzzled before Fillmore patted all his pockets only to find his keys missing. When he looked back up, Ingrid was dangling them in her left hand. He gawked at her, while the others stayed shockingly silent. “When did you—”

“I picked them when you pulled me off Shelby.” The others did a double take as Ingrid walked backwards in the direction where she saw Fillmore’s truck on her way in. “I couldn’t have you driving off without knowing how much you had to drink.”

“You know driving without a license is illegal, right?” Fillmore asked, following her with a smirk.

“So’s drinking and driving.”

Karen slipped out from underneath Danny’s arm, leaving him with Anza. “Wait a second, what the hell did we miss?” she asked, hot on their trails.

Fillmore and Ingrid shared a look as he caught up to her, and she gave him a knowing smile, but was careful to keep his keys out of his reach. She knew he was sober enough, but a part of her wanted him to know she would drive him home even if he wasn’t. That she’d always be there, for whatever reason. And, sometimes, even if he didn’t want her to be.

He smiled back at her, before waving the others along. “We’ll tell you on the way, baby girl,” he told Karen. Then, he tossed his arm around Ingrid’s shoulders, but didn’t even make a move for his keys.

Chapter Text

Fillmore whispered her name too close to her ear, making Ingrid jump out of her half-sleep. As she glanced around her bedroom in a daze for any clues as to how long she’d dozed off, he chuckled softly beside her. “Someone’s sleepy,” he teased, nudging her with his elbow.

She narrowed her eyes in his direction before carefully rubbing the sleep out of them without smearing her makeup. The last thing she wanted Fillmore to see was her with half-rubbed off, raccoon-like makeup. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He flashed her a toothy grin and held out his hand. “If you give me my keys, I can get out of your hair and you can sleep.”

She crossed her arms and shook her head, focusing on the TV. “Not a chance,” she replied, stifling a yawn. “You’re still drunk.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t had a drink in over three hours.”

“That I know of,” she said. “Shooters are small, easy to conceal.”

“And you think I wouldn’t have shared if I had them?”

“Would you?”

“If you asked nicely.”

“Save your suggestive winks for Karen, belt.”

Fillmore laughed and shook his head before he settled back into the pillows next to her. Ingrid rolled her eyes but was thankful he turned away when he did, or he would’ve seen the blush creeping into her cheeks. Ingrid sighed, partly to calm the butterflies in her stomach, and partly in content. That was what she loved: when it was just herself and her partner. After many hilarious attempts to get Breakfast Club-esque pictures on Ingrid’s porch railing, O’Farrell’s mother stopped by to pick him up and Anza and Tehama decided to walk home, leaving Fillmore and Ingrid to themselves. It had been such a challenging week, and that night was exactly what she needed. Despite her newfound feelings for him, she couldn’t help but feel more comfortable being alone with him than being with anyone else. She shifted, turning towards him and drawing her knees closer to her.

Ingrid yawned quietly and struggled to keep her burning eyes open as she nestled into the pillows behind her. He was right. She was sleepy, but to a much greater extent than he’d thought. Her limbs were made of lead, weighed down by gravity and the events of the week, and her head throbbed in protest to her consciousness. She gently massaged her sore knuckles, thinking the dull pain might keep her awake enough for the meantime.

She wasn’t just sleepy. She was exhausted.

“What’s been on your mind, mama?” Fillmore asked, not taking his eyes off the TV.

Ingrid paused to process his out-of-the-blue question. “Well, a lot went down today,” she answered and turned to face him, laying her too-heavy head on the pillow. “Take your pick.”

“Nah,” he shook his head and looked down at her, “I meant what’s been on your mind all week.”

She squinted at him, silently praying that, being barely a foot away from him, he wouldn’t hear her heart now racing in her chest. Could he be onto her? “What do you mean?”

With an intrigued gleam in his eye, he sat up straighter, and said, “You’ve been doing way too much this week.” He turned towards her, leaning back on one elbow and propping the other on his knee. “You overwork yourself when there’s something going on that you don’t wanna think about. So, what is it?”

Ingrid inwardly cursed with a heavy sigh. So, he was onto her. She might have been a great detective and undercover operative, but she still couldn’t hide from her partner. She should’ve known better. But she rolled her eyes up to the ceiling to mask the self-criticism circling in her mind and asked to no one in particular, “What is it with the men in my life suddenly becoming so observant?”

“Oh,” he drawled with a Cheshire grin. “So, there’s another man in your life?”

A hearty laugh burst from Ingrid’s chest at the irony. “Yeah, right,” she quipped, pretending to wipe amused tears from her eyes. “That would be the day.”

Fillmore gaped at her. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Her curiosity piqued at his display of what seemed like disbelief. Or, maybe it was shock, but regardless, she plainly shrugged. “Let’s face it, Fillmore. The only guys I meet are bad guys. Not exactly ‘new man in my life’ material.”

“What? You’re telling me, that even as a former bad girl yourself, the idea of a good, old-fashioned bad boy doesn’t sound the least bit attractive to you?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Ingrid scoffed. “That’s an oxymoron, Fillmore. There’s no such thing as a good bad boy.”

“Not necessarily,” he said. He wiggled his eyebrows and gestured to himself. “I mean, there is me.”

Touché. Ingrid quickly buried her flushing face into her shoulder with a darling pout, batting her eyelashes. “But don’t you have Karen?” she asked with sickly sweet sarcasm.

Fillmore chuckled and shrugged. “I mean, technically, yeah, but only because Anza won’t pull his head out of his ass and ask her out.”

Ingrid gasped. “You’ve seen it too?”

With a scoff, Fillmore rolled his eyes. “Girl, that’s been going on forever. Where’ve you been?” She opened her mouth to add on to that, but he pointed a stern finger at her. “But don’t sit there and try to change the subject, missy. I wanna know more about this ‘mystery man’,” he teased with air quotes and a sly smile.

Ingrid frowned as he dashed her hopes to have a way out of answering him, but she rolled her eyes. “There’s no mystery man. I was talking about my father. He was the one who convinced me to stick it to Shelby and go to the party tonight. Trust me,” she said, taking a second to draw a deep breath in. The sudden prying was making her nervous, and she hoped she could turn the conversation around on him. “It’s not like there could be a new guy in my life that you wouldn’t know about.”

He held a hand to his chest. “You mean you’d get my approval before you made it official?”

“I mean that your nosey ass would probably run background, recon, and perform an interrogation on him before I even introduced you.”

“Only because you deserve the best, and I don’t want any creeps tryna get close to you.”

Ingrid scoffed and curled in on herself but kept her voice even. “Come on, what guy would want to get close to me?”

Fillmore stared blankly at her for a moment. “Any guy with two eyes, maybe?” he suggested sarcastically. “And taste?”

Ingrid chuckled and wrapped her arms defensively around her stomach, avoiding his eyes by staring at the wall above the TV. “I’m invisible, Fillmore. Purposefully, I might add. Guys don’t notice me.”

Fillmore raised a curious eyebrow, which Ingrid tried her best to ignore, although she couldn’t help but inwardly cringe as he observed her. The longer he stared at her, the creepier her skin crawled, but she didn’t dare let herself shift from the discomfort. She couldn’t afford to give anything away, no matter how badly she wanted to scream at him to let it go.

“You’re scared,” he blurted, causing Ingrid’s heart to plummet and an exaggerated laugh to burst from her chest. She gaped at him.

“Scared of what?” she asked, her voice a pitch higher than normal.

“I don’t know,” he replied and crossed his arms. “You tell me.”

“I am not scared of dating,” she claimed, and her eyes instinctively darted around the room, looking for a way out of the conversation. In a typical Fillmore fashion, he inched slowly closer to a deeper-rooted issue than he realized; her own insecurity.

Ingrid never thought of herself as an eye-turner. Regardless of its truth or myth, she preferred to be the opposite, to stick to the shadows and create her own world of chaos with no one the wiser. That driven need to remain in the shadows never changed, not even when Fillmore helped her turn her life around. While she might’ve spent the last decade reassuring others that keeping herself invisible was because she preferred it that way, the truth was that, yes, she was afraid. Not of dating in and of itself, but for herself. Watching all her friends sashay from one relationship to another, she saw how each one highlighted aspects of themselves they hadn’t noticed before.

There was a lot about herself that Ingrid wasn’t pleased with. She didn’t need any outside forces to worsen her displeasure. In her eyes, relationships could only showcase her flaws, which she had a hard-enough time accepting for herself, and she didn’t need the added worry of wanting someone else to accept her, too, flaws and all.

Alas, Ingrid didn’t have the energy for that kind of conversation, and, even if she did, she certainly wouldn’t want to discuss it with Fillmore. She’d drummed up her logic (however warped) to simple, typical teenage girl angst a long time ago, which, for sure, Fillmore wouldn’t understand. As close as they were, if she were to have that conversation at all, Ingrid considered that more of a sister-to-sister one. Sadness slammed into her chest once again. She’d forgotten what had really been on her mind this week. If she hadn’t been desperate for a subject change beforehand, she was ready for one now.

“Scared of being noticed, then?” he suggested.

“What the hell kind of assumption is that?” she snapped with a sharp glare, silently wishing looks could, at the very least, maim. Sometimes, she wondered if he could actually read her mind, which frustrated her to no end. It bubbled in her chest like a pot of boiling water, sending waves of heat through her chest to her neck.

Fillmore lifted his hands, surprised. “Whoa, whoa, pump the brakes, mama,” he started, before Ingrid pointed a finger at him.

“You’re the one who should be pumping his brakes, Fillmore,” she growled and crossed her arms, “before you start a conversation you wish you hadn’t.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Seems to me, you’re the one who doesn’t wanna have it.”

Ingrid gasped dramatically. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“So, I was right, Lil Miss Defensive?” he asked. Ingrid couldn’t help but roll her eyes. He came up with the most ridiculous pet names. Although, she had to admit, he had a point. Maybe she was trying too hard to convince him. “You’re afraid to be noticed?”

Ingrid bit her lip and, with a shake of her head, focused hard on the TV, deciding that pleading the fifth might be her best option. “I’m telling you, Fillmore, drop it.”

“Aright, fine. Consider it dropped,” he conceded, bowing his head and raising his hands in surrender. After a deliberate pause, he added, “But you know more people – I mean, more guys – notice you than you realize, right?”

Ingrid rolled her eyes. His persistence was easily her most and least favorite quality of his. “Yeah, okay,” she replied, dully. Fillmore’s gaze widened, and he paused, which made her look back over at him. “What?”

“You don’t believe me?” he asked, although she couldn’t tell if it was more so a statement than a question by the way he was gaping at her.

“Does this look like the face of someone who believes you?” she quipped, puzzled by his shock. “Fillmore, the whole point of being invisible is you don’t get noticed. Makes the job that much easier.” He continued to stare at her like a puzzle needing solving, peering deeply into her eyes as if they held the answer. If it was anyone else, it would’ve made her insanely uncomfortable. Instead, she held his gaze with her own. “Why are you acting like that’s news to you?”

“Ingrid, I’m about to ask you a question,” he told her, finally breaking eye contact and turned his body to face her. He crossed his legs and interlocked his fingers, setting them in his lap and resting his elbows on his knees. She raised a curious brow. “Imma need an honest answer from you.”

She sighed, exhausted from a conversation-turned-interrogation, but she shrugged in submission. “What is it?”

He raised his still-clasped hands together and pointed his index fingers at her. “Why do you think Shelby was so jealous of you?”

Ingrid scrunched her face together. “That’s your question?”

With a single nod, he kept a serious face. “Feel free to take your time with it.”

“I don’t need to,” she said cautiously, her face still contorted in curiosity. Warning bells resounded in her head, sensing all the flags of a trap, but she answered, “We’re best friends, Fillmore. We’ve known each other for years. That’s intimidating to any girl who comes into your life.” Fillmore burst into laughter, and it was Ingrid’s turn to gawk at him. “Oh, the strain our friendship has on your relationships is funny to you?”

“Nah,” he laughed, wiping fake tears from his eyes. “I’m laughing cause the real answer is gonna rock your world.”

Ingrid scoffed, letting a slightly amused smirk appear on her lips. “Better be careful. I’m barely over the first rocking.”

“She’s jealous because you’re hot.” If Ingrid had been drinking something, she would’ve spit it out. Fillmore grinned as her mouth wordlessly flapped open and closed. A part of her wanted to slap that stupid grin off his face, but she couldn’t seem to do anything. Never in a million years would she have thought those words would leave his mouth. Partly because he was her best friend who (that she knew of) never spoke of or saw her like that, and partly because, as he so correctly pointed out, she didn’t believe him. “Well, hot damn, crown me King of the HQ,” he crooned with a devilish grin. “I’ve left Ingrid Third speechless.”

“You’re so full of shit!” she spat out through a skeptic scoff.

“You seriously don’t believe me?”

Ingrid scoffed in disbelief once more and turned her attention to the wall in front of them. She couldn’t believe him. Not when she was the one who saw herself in the mirror every morning, stripped to nothing, and never saw someone good enough. All she saw was someone too pale, too different, too… many things she didn’t like. Sometimes, looking at herself in the mirror made her want to crawl out of her own skin and into someone else’s. Hearing Fillmore’s conflicting opinion shocked her, to say the least. While she feared the longer she stayed silent, the harder it would be to change the subject, none of the words that came to her felt right. Pleading the fifth sounded perfect.

“Ariella is the pretty one of us,” she blurted, and instantly regretted it. Sure, they were sisters and they looked alike, but Ingrid always envied her sister’s features. She saw more of their mother in her; the natural beachy waves of her hair, while Ingrid’s curls were too unruly to manage without a straightener (she prayed no one ever saw her hair post-shower, or find the straightener she kept in her locker for emergencies), the way Ari could look effortlessly gorgeous, whether she was going to a dance or cleaning the house in two-day-worn pajamas, while Ingrid felt frumpy no matter what she did. Ariella was the natural kind of beautiful, all the way down to the shape of her face and her eyes. The kind of beautiful Ingrid wished she could be.

But, of course, she didn’t need Fillmore to know any of that.

“Girl, you’re trippin’,” he replied. “You’re both gorgeous.”

As heat rose to her cheeks, Ingrid couldn’t help but grin insecurely and cross her arms over her chest, suddenly feeling far too vulnerable for her liking. “You’re just saying that because you’re supposed to,” she reasoned, more to herself than to him.

Fillmore leaned closer, trying to make eye contact with her. “I’m saying that because it’s true. You have no idea how many perps I’ve had to chase off after getting interrogated by you.”

“Oh,” she drawled, finally rolling her head sarcastically to look him in the eyes. “Those ‘good, old-fashioned bad boys’ not good enough for me?”

“Hell, no.”

“You’d think getting drilled for hours on end by a girl would turn them off,” she wondered aloud, a trace of sarcasm evident on her tongue.

“Not when you’re the girl doing it. When you’re in the zone and you’re all getting in their head and in their face, I see how they find you hot. In the most intimidating kinda way.”

“Now you’re just making things up.”

He held up a hand with a half smirk. “Swear on Gram’s mustard greens.” Ingrid rolled her eyes as he settled comfortably back into her pillows. “You’re not as invisible as you think, mama,” he continued, trailing off as if he were finally finished pestering her. She raised her eyebrow and glanced at him from the corners of her eyes, waiting for the punchline she was sure would come. “Especially not when you wear those ripped up skinny jeans you got. They make your ass look fine as hell.”

Ingrid’s jaw dropped and she snapped her head over to face him, while he grinned suggestively. “Fillmore!” she scolded as her cheeks grew hotter.

He shrugged one shoulder. “Hey, I might be your best friend, but I’m a guy, too. I can’t help but notice.”

Electric shock pulsed through her chest into her stomach. Fillmore checked out her ass? Ingrid was speechless as the reality manifested in her head, although it hardly seemed real. Her heart fluttered rapidly as she wondered if, deep down, he felt for her the same she did for him, even if he didn’t realize it. Maybe she was reading too much into it. He was right: he was a guy, so it could just be his raging hormones observing her and not some kind of complicated emotional bond that attracted him to her. Or maybe she should read further into it: was he subconsciously admitting something?

Her head spun, and she faced the TV again before he could read her mind. He’d bombarded her mind with way too much new information, and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take. She dredged up some words – any words she could think of – and finally managed to suggest, “We could talk about anything on Planet Earth, Fillmore.”

“How about dat ass?”

“We could talk about my parents’ divorce.”

“Ass for days.”

“How about that time I walked in on you and Shelby and saw your ass?”

Fillmore glared at her, and it was Ingrid’s turn to evilly smirk at him. “You promised you’d never bring that up again.”

“No, you asked me to never bring it up again,” she corrected and crossed her arms. “But desperate times call for desperate measures. You talk about my ass, I talk about yours. It’s only fair.”

After a brief stare-down, he sighed and said, “Touché.” Ingrid grinned victoriously and turned her attention back to the TV, and Fillmore, finally silent, did the same. Thoughts bounced around her head like a bat in a small box. Fillmore thought she was gorgeous? He liked her ass? Guys had pursued her without her knowledge? She pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. Too much information. Not enough sleep. Ingrid leaned back into her pillow, crossed her arms, and brought her knees up to her chest, thankful for the chance to finally get comfortable again.

“Sick enough of me to turn me loose, officer?” Fillmore asked after a short silence, his voice hardly above a whisper.

“Not a chance,” she answered quietly, trying and failing to mask a yawn as it escaped her lips. He chuckled beside her and they both settled in their spots. Refocusing on the TV as her adrenaline subsided, Ingrid’s eyelids grew heavy. Peeking at the clock in the corner of her eye, she berated herself for being so tired before ten o’clock, but she couldn’t bring herself to keep her eyes open. I’ll just rest my eyes for a bit, she thought as they drooped closed. A moment later, her head followed suit, and a split second later, something heavy and warm draped across her shoulders. She turned and buried her face into it, barely registering how faintly it smelled like her partner before she fell fast asleep.

xXxXx

With a sigh, Nathan flipped his folder shut, dropped his pen on the desk, and reached underneath his glasses to rub his tired eyes. He shouldn’t have convinced Ingrid to go out that night; passing out candy for four hours set him too far back on his grading. Instant regret clouded his mind as that thought passed through it. He’d had later nights for worse reasons, and Ingrid needed a night out. Had it occurred to him that the party was going to end at their house? No. But, thankfully, her friends weren’t entirely the rowdy type, so he could at least concentrate. Although, the call to Danny’s parents wasn’t the most enjoyable, once he realized the teen was, as Karen claimed, “plastered”. While he was thankful it wasn’t his own child, he felt ridiculous for not inquiring deeper into what kind of party Ingrid was going to.

Nathan knew Ingrid was responsible. It hadn’t occurred to him that when Ingrid was excited about going to a party, that she meant that kind of party. It didn’t seem like something she’d ever be interested in. That concept baffled him, but he was relieved that she was the sober one of the five of them. He looked down at his watch, which read just after midnight, and he reached for the lamp switch just before his phone buzzed. At first, he was puzzled – he never received calls that late – but once he saw the name on the caller ID, he picked it up.

“Hey, Jo,” he greeted.

“Nathan, hi,” Fillmore’s mother replied, pitched with worry. “Is Cornelius over there?” Nathan opened his mouth to tell her that he hadn’t heard his truck leave the driveway, so he must be, but Joelle didn’t give him the chance. “He told me he’d be home by midnight and that he’d keep me updated where he is, but he’s not answering his phone, and I haven’t heard from him since he got to Shelby’s house and—”

“He’s here, Jo,” Nathan interrupted calmly. She sighed in relief on the other end. “I haven’t heard either of them in a while, so they probably just fell asleep,” he explained as he stood up to stretch.

“Well, you wake him up and tell him he better get himself home before I can say his full name,” she warned sharply, but Nathan couldn’t hold back a chuckle.

“What is his middle name, anyway?” he asked and turned off his desk lamp before heading for the door. “He’s refused to tell us, even after all these years.”

“If I told you that, I wouldn’t have anything up my sleeve to scare him into listening to me.”

Nathan raised an amused eyebrow, pausing as he reached the door. “You blackmail your son into obedience?”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Nathan,” she laughed. “Now, go wake him up for me, would you?”

“Already on it, Jo,” Nathan agreed with a chuckle, ascending the stairs. “Give me just a second and you can scare him yourself,” he told her as he approached Ingrid’s bedroom and knocked lightly with his knuckle. “Neil?” he called out as he twisted the knob and pushed open the door. “Your mom’s—” He froze halfway in the door, jaw to the floor. He was right – they’d both fallen asleep. What he hadn’t expected was for them to be asleep together.

He gaped at their sleeping forms; at Fillmore’s arm wrapped carefully around Ingrid’s back, with his hand resting on her waist, and at Ingrid, who had turned and buried her face into his chest, and a thousand thoughts ran through Nathan’s head. Didn’t Neil have a girlfriend? Did all his “jealous” jokes—wait, this didn’t mean they were together, did it? Had Ingrid actually been jealous the whole time? Joelle’s voice calling out from his phone broke him out of his flustered stupor just as Ingrid stirred, and suddenly, he knew he had to act fast. Joelle would never believe him without proof. He quickly – almost instinctually – hung up the phone, and, with fumbling, rushed fingers, he pulled up his camera and took a picture of the two before turning to the door to leave. But, with his hand on the door frame, he looked over his shoulder at them one last time.

He couldn’t imagine Ingrid being with anyone but Cornelius Fillmore. He’d never thought something like this would happen so soon, but whatever it brought (if anything – he could’ve just walked in on something innocent, for all he knew) he’d be happy for her. Neil was a great kid, friend or otherwise. He smiled softly at them before he quietly shut the door just in time for his phone to buzz in his hand. He shook his head. He knew there would be no explaining this as he declined Joelle’s call and opened his texts. After all, he thought, as he sent her the picture, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Nathan treaded softly back down the stairs with a satisfied bounce in his steps as he waited for her response. He sighed – he was glad Ingrid went out, despite whatever mishap drove them all back to their house. At least it drove those two together. His phone buzzed in his pocket just as he took the last step. It was a fast response even for Joelle: how much would you bet that they’re together by the summer?

He grinned but paused before responding. Summer seemed too soon for Ingrid. She was a slow-mover… He bit his lip as he raised the phone to reply: too fast for her. i’d put money on the next. Her response was instantaneous: how much, though? ;)

Nathan rolled his eyes and chuckled as he neared his bedroom. He’d ask if she was serious, but it was Mama Fillmore he was talking to. Of course, she was serious. He eyeballed the ceiling, as if it had the answer, before typing the first number to pop into his head:

$100 ;)

He hit send.

Chapter Text

Ingrid hit “submit” with a heavy sigh before rubbing her dry eyes. Two hours of staring at the computer can truly suck the life out of you, she thought as she stretched her arms above her head with a satisfied groan. She and Fillmore had just finished a three-day undercover infiltration of the frisbee golf team. A few of their players went rogue and were using their matches as a front to transport and sell black market items like X’s team playbooks, club projects, and new cutting-edge equipment (which they stole) to rival schools for their own financial gain. While the operation wrapped up quicker than their average stings (and much quicker than they’d expected), the paperwork felt equally as long as – if not longer than – one that spanned a week or more.

And, of course, Fillmore was “needed elsewhere”. How convenient for him. Ingrid wondered, as she popped her neck and hit the button to print, who he’d bribed into getting him out of their paperwork duty, and then how much she would need to bribe said person into not letting him get out of it next time. Or, to pass it all off to him for once.

Ingrid chuckled as the printer whirred to life on the opposite side of the office. Fillmore filling out an entire case file on his own in one sitting would be amusing to watch. How generously she’d pay to be a fly on the wall for that. She stood up and arched her back to stretch, eyeballing the handful of sharpened pencils stuck in the ceiling tiles above Fillmore’s desk as she did so, and wagering how the number of pencils might multiply during that time. She silently vowed to orchestrate the charade as she trudged over to the printer spitting out her hefty report with a smirk, snatching a yellow manila file on the way.

She slapped the empty file down with another yawn as she picked up the label printer. Normally, Ingrid wouldn’t mind doing all the paperwork. On most days, she preferred it, considering she would most likely have to amend, revise, or correct some of Fillmore’s share eventually. However, on that day, her plush reading nook and her new book (which, according to Amazon, arrived on her doorstep around noon) were calling her name from the corner of her bedroom as she punched in the number to print. The setting sun cast an orange glow across the printing pages, and she caught a glimpse of the time – just after five. Now that the only thing standing between her and a cup of hot tea at home was the time it took the printer to finish its job, she let out a relieved sigh.

Her phone buzzed on her desk. Quickly sticking the fresh label on the manila tab, she set it down by the printer and walked back to her desk. She picked up the phone and saw a text from Fillmore that made her heart plummet:

SOS SOUTH FIELD.

She swore, stuffed the phone in her pocket, and bolted out the door.

A million thoughts ran through her head as she sprinted through the hallways towards the south wing of the school. What kind of trouble had he managed to get into? She thought he’d left the school hours ago. What brought him back? Had he left at all? Wouldn’t he have told her if he was following a lead or tying up a loose end? Scanning her report in her memory, she formed a quick risk assessment of everyone they collared to prepare for what she might be up against.

Carson Abbey, junior, tall and lanky, served as their lookout. Froze like a deer in headlights when he saw the hoard of Safety Patrol belts heading his way. Harmless. Ingrid burst through the doors to the staircase, taking them two, three at a time. James Farley, junior, swore like a sailor but had a bark bigger than his bite. Probably not much of a threat. Christian Bailey was too compliant (with his arrest and subsequent interrogation), Morgan Bast too quiet (the real “I refuse to say any more until a parent or lawyer is present” type), and Tyler Ostein’s parents grounded him to house arrest, which they vowed he wouldn’t break.

Ingrid shuddered as she arrived at the south wing doors. That left their muscle man, Harley Enzo. She did not want herself nor her partner to be on the receiving end of his wrath. It had taken four officers to corner and subdue him, and she’d been shocked that no one walked away with any black eyes or bloody lips. He was menacingly large and, at the time of his arrest, homicidally angry.

She burst through the doors and sprinted towards the frisbee golf field, her heart pounding in her chest. She prayed that wasn’t the case now. Fillmore was tough and she knew he could handle himself in a fight, but her stomach twisted into knots imagining him going up against that giant.

But, as she ran up on the field, she found it abandoned. She slowed, circling to take in her surroundings. He had to be around here somewhere. She started reaching for her phone when she heard a crack from the opposite side of the concession stand. As she jogged towards the building, she realized she was coming up on the baseball field. There must be some stragglers from practice, she thought. She paused in confusion as she heard faint echoes of voices roll towards her. They didn’t sound frantic or panicked. They must’ve not noticed Fillmore nearby, or maybe he was long gone. She cautiously peeked around the corner to catch a glimpse of them, and hot anger surged through her veins.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” she muttered breathlessly upon seeing Fillmore, Tehama, Anza, and O’Farrell spread out around the diamond, clearly not in any danger. Her partner was at-bat pointing at Anza, who was on the pitcher’s mound, with said bat and had yet to notice her arrival. Out of all the fantasies of hers he’d been starring in as of late, imagining taking that baseball bat out of his hand and beating him with it – no matter how good that red-sleeved raglan looked on him – was the first fantasy of its kind. She rounded the corner quickly as Fillmore tapped home plate with his bat and bent down. “What the hell is this?” she demanded breathlessly as she stomped around the fence.

Fillmore, either not sensing her frustration or not caring, stood up straight and faced her with a million-dollar grin. He held his arms out, wielding the bat in one hand. “There’s my hard-workin’ mama!” he called, while Anza and Tehama cheered.

“You texted me ‘SOS’,” Ingrid reminded him sharply as she approached, fuming despite the cool spring breeze blowing past her.

“Yeah,” he said, gesturing to the diamond with a cocky wiggle of his eyebrows. “‘Save our scrimmage’.”

Ingrid scoffed in disbelief and glared at him. “You think that’s funny?” she snapped and stepped towards him. He cringed – barely concealing his playful smile – and carefully dropped the bat to the ground a split second before she shoved him. “That’s for emergencies only, you asshole!” she scolded, barely registering Karen and Anza jogging up to them or O’Farrell, who was acting-umpire, backing away from them.

“We told you that text was a bad idea,” Anza told Fillmore as he moved to step between them but, as Ingrid, without breaking her vicious eye-contact with her partner, held up a firm hand to stop him, Anza thought better of it. He exhaled quietly through pursed lips and backed away, but not before giving Fillmore a silent “good luck” pat on the shoulder.

Fillmore held his hands up in front of him, “C’mon, mama, I’m—”

“Don’t you dare call me that!” she spat with an accusatory finger in his face, which began shaking as a rush of relief started overtaking her anger. “This whole time I’ve been busting my ass trying to finish this report because you ‘had something to take care of at home’, and then I thought something happened to you while I was doing it only to sprint over here to find out you’ve been—” her eyes darted around the field as she stumbled over her next words, not quite sure what they were “—what, swinging at a ball this whole time?”

“Well, not this whole time,” he corrected with a feeble shrug. “I did have to go home first.”

Ingrid crossed her arms. “Do I even want to know?”

Fillmore tossed the idea around in his hands with a drawn-out “tsk” before deciding on a cautious, “Probably not.” Ingrid scoffed and shook her head before turning on her heel to leave, barely noticing Fillmore following close behind her. “C’mon, Ingrid, I messed up.”

“Clearly,” she called over her shoulder, hoping that he’d get the message to back off. What the hell was he thinking? That was a crisis-only text, and he’d never abused it before. He thinks he can just—

Fillmore grabbed her by the wrist, which stopped her in her tracks. “And clearly I’m going to regret this later in my soon-to-be very short life,” he said as she shot him an icy glare, but he didn’t cower like most. He moved in front of her, blocking her path back to the school, and met her stone-cold stare with the best apologetic pout he could muster. “I figured it was the only way I’d get you out here without a fight—”

“And what would you call this?” she interrupted, pointing between them. “A party?”

He ignored her challenge and continued. “—We haven’t hung out just the five of us in a while, and after how hard we’ve all worked on this case, I thought we all needed it. And I knew you’d be wrapping up soon, so I wanted to get to you before you ran home to hide with whatever new book you haven’t cracked open yet.”

Ingrid looked down to hide the blush in her cheeks, anger subsiding. He knew her too well. She rubbed the back of her burning neck before asking, “How did you know about that?”

Fillmore shrugged. “You were giving off a real ‘urgent, gotta-get-home’ vibe during our debrief, which you always do when you’ve got a book waiting at home.” To that, she rolled her eyes back up to meet his. He might know her well, but she wasn’t so predictable. A silent pause passed between them and she raised her eyebrow. “Okay,” he admitted, “I saw the delivery notification on your phone at lunch.” She chuckled beside herself and he flashed her his signature cocky grin, as if he knew he was starting to win her over. “But you can’t tell me you’re not almost finished with that damned report. Your efficient ass never takes more than two, maybe three hours tops.”

Crackers, Third, she thought. Maybe you are that predictable. “It’s printing,” she admitted through gritted teeth, which only made him grin wider.

“It’s two versus one,” he said and jerked a thumb towards the pair behind him, “and they are kicking my ass.” He bent down a bit to meet her eyes, gripped her softly by the biceps, and said a little quieter, “I really need my partner.”

Ingrid shivered as those words reached her ears. God, he knew just how to work her. She hated it. She also loved it, and the way he squeezed her arms and begged her with his warm, dark eyes, and the way that shirt hugged his shoulders just right, so she sighed. “I’m not much of an expert in this field,” she warned him as butterflies started circling in her stomach.

He grinned and gripped her by the hand without taking his eyes off hers, which made her heart leap. “As long as you’re in the field with me, mama,” he reassured her, and she broke out in a grin as he pulled her along.

“And I’m not really dressed for the occasion,” she continued, gesturing towards her skinny jeans – the ones Fillmore apparently checked her out in – and trusty combat boots.

Fillmore, keeping a firm grip on her hand, shot her a skeptical look over his shoulder and said with a wave of dismissal, “Girl, don’t worry. You look great.” He pulled Ingrid’s hand in the air as they approached the three teammates on home plate, to which they all cheered. Karen and Fillmore fought over which team Ingrid would be on, but she couldn’t hear them argue over the sound of her racing heart. That wasn’t what she meant… surely Fillmore knew that? Maybe it was just a slip. He could have misheard her, but he hadn’t hesitated. He’s given her compliments before—

Focus, Third. She shook her head to try and clear it of those intrusive thoughts (she scolded herself – girlish, much?) but Fillmore let go of her hand and possessively draped his arm across her shoulders, pulling her closer and saying something about being partners in everything for life. Which, of course, made focusing much harder.

Great Scott, was attraction infuriating.

“Y’all have been kicking my ass since we got out here, so she’s on my team. End of discussion.” Fillmore’s voice broke Ingrid out of thought. “Let’s play ball!”

“Is it hot out here or is it just you taking charge?” Karen fanned her face with a coy smile.

“It’s been hot since you got here, baby,” he winked, and Ingrid couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

“You two should get a room,” she said, vaguely aware of Anza barely holding back glaring in her direction.

“We would, but I’m too busy tryna score home runs on the real field, you know?” Fillmore clapped back and Ingrid chuckled, but she still couldn’t look at him. That shirt looked so damn good on him and with all the compliments he’s showered her with in the last ten minutes, she wasn’t sure she could look at him and stay mad. Fillmore squeezed her shoulders, which were still underneath his finely-sculpted arm. “You’re not still mad, are you?” he asked.

Crackers. He noticed. “Oh, I’m pissed,” she lied and bent down to grab the bat off the ground. “But now I have this, which I can use to expel all my anger on the target of my aggression if he’s not careful. So, I guess I’m feeling a little better.”

Fillmore stepped back defensively, despite the self-assured smirk on his face. “The only thing you should be hitting with that is a ball.”

“True, and the way I see it, considering my inexperience, the more balls I swing at, the more likely I am to hit one,” she reasoned. He cocked his head in confusion, so she elaborated. “You have two, which increases my chances two-fold.”

Tehama shrieked in laughter, while O’Farrell and Anza ooh-ed painfully. Fillmore held back a laugh, but not a smile, and crossed his arms. “You ain’t hitting anything holding the bat like that,” he said, eying her hands, which were spread far apart. “It’s a bat, not an ax.”

“It’s still a weapon.”

Tehama, still gasping with laughter, stepped in. “Okay, maybe let’s put the weapons away and play some baseball?” she suggested. “Think you guys can do that?”

“Oh, I can play,” Fillmore said, but pointed at the bat, and Ingrid glared at him, “but I don’t think she can.”

“Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us then.” Karen looked at Anza and jerked her head back towards the pitcher’s mound, and everyone walked back to their previous positions.

Hands up in front of him, Fillmore approached Ingrid slowly with a smile. “Permission to approach?”

Ingrid scoffed and held the bat out to him. “You’re an idiot.”

“Agreed, but—” he pushed the bat back to her “—you’re up, mama.”

Ingrid raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s what you want? Mr. ‘You Ain’t Hitting Anything with an Ax?”

“C’mon, it’s real easy,” he said and guided her back to home plate. “You just gotta copy the hitters you see on TV.”

“Pray tell, when have you ever caught me watching baseball – or any sport for that matter – on TV?”

“Well, you’ve seen The Sandlot or Angels in the Outfield at least, haven’t you?” he asked, but was met with silent, amused eyes. “I’m gonna have to show you, aren’t I?”

“I warned you, Fillmore.”

He sighed with a smile and held his hand out for the bat, which she held out to him. “So, first and foremost, you wanna keep your eye on the ball…”

As he squatted down to show her how to stand and swing, Ingrid internally screamed. She hated what he was doing to her because, for once, he didn’t realize he was doing it. They were just being themselves: Fillmore and Ingrid, partners against crime, best friends, the Patrol’s best dynamic duo. He was simply being his normal, charming, incredibly frustrating handsome self. And, considering his charm had suddenly been directed at her, he was making it very difficult to concentrate on whatever-it-was he was saying.

Wait. That “charm” couldn’t have been intentional… Could it?

Flirting was his and Tehama’s thing. He never did it with her. Sure, they made jabs at each other often, but it was never accompanied by winks or displays of affection. Which, she suddenly noticed, he’d done to her within the last fifteen minutes. The compliments, the prolonged holding her hand and draping his arm across her shoulders, the smile that seemed glued to his face since he won her over…

Was Fillmore flirting with her?

“Girl, are you even paying attention?” Fillmore suddenly asked as he stood up straight.

Her heart skipped a beat. Caught. Think fast – her memory flashed to months prior, to an intimate conversation on her bed. If ever there was a time to test her “flirting” theory, it was now. “It’s pretty difficult to concentrate when you’re wearing those jeans you’ve got on,” she replied, shooting him a quick wink. “They make your ass look fine as hell.”

Danny gawked behind him – apparently, so shocked at her boldness and clueless to the inside joke – while Fillmore looked to the sky and laughed before looking back at her with a grin a mile wide. “Ing, you gotta let that go.”

“Not a chance,” she said and snatched the bat from his hands. “But, you’re right. It can’t be that hard.” She quickly recalled how Fillmore first posed and did her best to mimic him, squatting down and lifting the bat up, ready to swing. “Like this?”

His eyes grazed over her – a moment too long, she noticed – before he “hmm-ed” and closed the space between them. “I’d put your hands right about—” he put his hands over hers and pushed them farther apart “—there. And bring your elbow up here—” with the tips of his fingers, he lifted her elbow just above her shoulder “—that way, you won’t have to draw back when you go to swing.”

“Because that would be ridiculous.”

“Absolutely. That ball comes at you fast, and you need every second you can get to swing.” Ingrid rolled her eyes. He was too serious when it came to his sports. “Now, when you swing…” He moved behind her and bent over her back, and Ingrid had to catch her breath. He pointed towards Anza at the mound, placing his other hand gently at her waist. “…you wanna keep your eye on the ball, at all times. You do that, and your swing will follow through wherever your eyes tell them to,” he explained softly into her ear. Ingrid suppressed a chill as his breath, close and hot, passed over her cheek and his back met hers. Her face grew hot. Keep it together, Third. “You know how you open your lead foot whenever you kick a bag?” She nodded, knowing any words of affirmation wouldn’t successfully pass her lips; not with the way his hips were currently cradling her ass. “You do the same thing here. You pivot—” he placed a bold hand on her hip and turned his pelvis along with hers “—opening your lead foot, and then you swing the bat. That hip—” he said with a gentle squeeze “—is what’s gonna get you the momentum to knock the ball outta the park. So, hips first, then swing.”

Ingrid’s mouth went dry. The husky tone in his voice? The excessive and unnecessary physical contact? Her theory had to be right: he was flirting with her. Dear God, help me, she thought. “H-hips first, then swing,” she repeated to reassure him she was still – albeit minimally – paying attention.

“Hips first—” he turned her hip again “—then swing.”

Out in the field, Karen couldn’t believe what she was watching. Since when in the hell was Fillmore so touchy-feely with Ingrid? The whole “being extra physical while teaching a girl a sport” thing was the most clichéd flirting technique in the book but, if she hadn’t known any better, it looked like Ingrid was actually playing along. She could practically see Ingrid’s cheeks turn red from the outfield – and not from the heat of late spring. She jogged up to Anza, who couldn’t take his eyes off the two at home plate. “Anza, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“I think Fillmore’s finally making a move.”

“And it’s about damn time!” she exclaimed in a hushed squeal, smacking his arm repeatedly in excitement. “It’s been so long since that whole thing with Shelby, I was beginning to lose hope. Looks like you’re gonna owe me dinner.”

Anza scoffed, only taking his eyes off the other two long enough to roll his eyes in her direction. “No, I think you’re gonna owe me dinner. I told you they’d be together by the end of the school year.”

“Bullshit!” she argued, hands on her hips. “If he’s just now making a move so close to the end of the year, no way they’ll be together that soon. It won’t happen ‘til at least the end of the summer.”

Anza shrugged with a cocky smirk. “Whatever you say,” he said. “But, for future reference, I like Italian.”

Back at home plate, Ingrid was desperately trying to keep it together. Caught between internal panic and Fillmore’s firm chest, her heart was fluttering at full speed. Having his breath in her ear and his hips pressed so maddeningly against hers was nearly driving her mad. She couldn’t count on one hand how many times they’d been so physically close together – meaning, never, save for a rare event where they embraced – but she quietly thanked the stars that she was one of the best undercover officers on the force, or she likely might’ve lost her cool completely.

“Careful, Fillmore,” she muttered, which made him look down at her. “You’re essentially teaching me how to properly take out kneecaps.”

His hands back at her waist, he shrugged, and said, “I mean, if you need Shelby’s address, I’m sure I’ve got it written down somewhere.” Beside herself, Ingrid laughed, and Fillmore let her go with a quick squeeze. “You ready, pitch?” he shouted in Anza’s direction.

“Language!” Karen shouted with a wink before jogging back to her spot while Anza prepared to pitch.

Ingrid took a deep breath, mostly to calm her nerves long enough to focus. However, she could practically feel Fillmore’s eyes boring right through her. Hips first, then swing, she reminded herself. She nervously adjusted her hands and tried to forget he was behind her (most likely staring at her ass since these were apparently his favorite jeans). Dammit, Third, eye on the ball, remember—

Anza launched the ball and Ingrid swung. With a resounding crack, the ball skipped towards left field and Fillmore clapped behind her. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about!”

Ingrid shook her head and smiled as she turned around to face him. “I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure a ground ball isn’t very impressive.”

“Hey, a ground ball can tip the scales in a close game,” he replied with his hands on his hips. “You might be hittin’ ground balls now, but come tomorrow, you could be hittin’ home runs.”

“I’d prefer mailboxes,” she quipped, to which he grinned. “That used to be a fun time.”

“Behave yourself, mama,” he warned with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows. “I don’t wanna have to take you into custody.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” Ingrid twirled the bat in her hands as she turned back around and repositioned herself. Fillmore chuckled behind her as her heart pounded in her chest. This was completely new territory for them. Her how-to-flirt knowledge came mostly from watching him and Karen, but she’s never put any of it into practice, save for a bad guy or two she was trying to woo into spilling their guts. Was she being too obvious? Fillmore didn’t seem uncomfortable, but willing and ready to play along. That was a good sign, right?

Ingrid took a deep breath as Anza readied his next pitch, who shouted something to her about making her next swing count. She nodded in acknowledgment but was hardly paying attention. She wasn’t sure what this flirting might lead to, or even if it would continue after this game, but it was equally exciting as it was terrifying. It, surprisingly, felt natural, despite how simultaneously nerve-wracking it was. Fillmore sent words of encouragement her way from his place behind her, which sent butterflies careening through her gut.

Focus, Third. Hips first – Anza launched the ball at her – then swing.

Chapter Text

xXxXx BEGIN FLASHBACK xXxXx

As X Middle School’s most efficient partners-against-crime approached the boys’ locker room, discomfort settled in Ingrid’s chest. “Are you sure this is where ‘Lobstee’ would run to, Fillmore?”

“Not really,” he admitted, not breaking his stride. “I mean, if he were me, I’d hope he wouldn’t be dumb enough, but you know what they say about T’s and I’s.” The duo stopped in front of the door, and her partner eyed her curiously. “What, don’t tell me Ingrid Third’s afraid of the boys’ locker room?” he joked, jerking a thumb in its direction.

She glared at him. “I’m not afraid of the room, Fillmore. I’m afraid of who might be exposed inside of it.”

“The human body’s a beautiful thing, baby,” Fillmore chided, wiggling his eyebrows. “Might not be such a bad image in that memory of yours.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You know what you just said could be considered sexual harassment, right?”

“You wanna embarrass yourself by jumping through all the hoops at HR just to stick it to me, you go right ahead,” he clapped back with a smirk and reached for the doorknob. “Close your eyes, Mama Theresa.”

Ingrid rolled her eyes before covering them with her hand. “It’s ‘Mother’.”

Fillmore shrugged and said, “Nah, I like ‘mama’.” He pushed the door open and, with a mischievous smirk, said, “It’s clear.”

Upon uncovering her eyes, Ingrid found that to be a lie. She cried out in shock as her eyes instantly fell on overweight eighth-grader Ryan Castiglione, clad in nothing but a too-small towel around his waist. She quickly re-covered her eyes but to no avail. Just like that, that image would be ingrained into her memory for the rest of her life.

“Oh, snap!” Fillmore grinned at her as Ryan walked away, unfazed. “I’m sorry!” he drawled sarcastically, and she glared at him as menacing as she could with a deep blush creeping into her cheeks.

“Fillmore, I really didn’t need that image in my photographic memory,” she said, while he grinned wickedly down at her. “Believe me, you will pay.”

xXxXx END FLASHBACK xXxXx

Ingrid took a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm her pounding heart as she strode down the street towards Fillmore’s house. She gave up trying to “keep it cool” a block over; not only was it far too humid too early in the day, but the excitement was swarming inside her, dangerously close to spilling out in the most uncharacteristically fangirl way. Warped Tour started in three hours. Ingrid’s first Warped Tour.

And Fillmore wasn’t answering his phone.

While she was teeming with mostly excitement, a small part of her worried, so she gathered all her essentials (a drawstring bag filled with sunscreen, towels, snacks, and everything else the website said she might need) and headed to his house, sending a futile “on my way” text in his direction. Most likely, he’d overslept (as usual during the summer), but far be it from her to make sure he hadn’t fallen in the shower and accidentally hung himself in the curtain or gotten mauled by his new five-week-old Pyrenees puppy.

One may never know.

Of course, even if she did find him in a state of duress, Ingrid had zero intentions to forego their plans. She’d wanted to attend the day-long music festival for years and nothing short of getting crushed by a meteorite would stop her this time. She’d drag him by a fishing hook through his earlobe if she had to. After years of having no one to go with, Ingrid found that it was a tradition for Tehama and Anza, who went there together the last two summers, and she knew her time had come. It took some time, but the three of them finally reassured Fillmore that despite the punk rock lineups, he’d have a good time as well.

Fillmore being the only one out of all of them with a brand-new truck had nothing to do with convincing him to tag along… whatsoever.

Ingrid approached his house and, seeing his truck standing alone in the driveway, she recalled that his parents were gone for the weekend, which would explain his unresponsiveness – he overslept, she was sure. She frowned at the idea of his new puppy – ironically named Bruiser – left to his own devices for so long in his kennel. She picked up the pace and ascended the porch stairs with her copy of his house key in her hand to let herself inside. Bruiser whined from his place in the kitchen, his nails against his kennel floor sending the earsplitting sound of scraping vinyl to her ears. She dropped her keys and bag by the front door and rushed towards the source of the sound.

“Hey, Mister!” she cooed, subconsciously peering over her shoulder to ensure she, in fact, was alone – if Fillmore heard her sounding so sickly sweet, she’d never live it down, even if it was for a puppy. The dog whined louder in excitement and the puff of white fur leaped for joy as she rounded the corner. Ingrid couldn’t hold back the open-mouthed grin from her face as he stumbled over his own tiny feet. “Have you been in here for days?” Ingrid asked dramatically as she reached for the kennel door. He wiggled and whined in response as her fingers fiddled with the latch and pounced on her the second the latch was freed.

She giggled as the momentum forced her backward onto her butt and he licked her cheeks. Ingrid inwardly cringed at the uncharacteristic behavior that always seemed to spill out when she was around this ball of white fur, but the feeling didn’t linger long as Bruiser jumped out of her lap and bolted from the room.

“Where do you think you’re going, mister?” she asked, quickly getting up to follow him as he bounded up the stairs, most likely towards Fillmore’s bedroom. “Guess you and I had the same idea,” she mumbled and moved to follow him when she heard the rhythmic thumping of Fillmore’s stereo which made her falter in her tracks. Apparently, her conclusion that he overslept was incorrect. So, if he had been awake this whole time, why wasn’t he answering his phone?

She continued up the stairs, where Bruiser, his whole bottom half wagging, was impatiently waiting for her at the top. The bass pumped louder as she ascended, Bruiser’s excitement worsened, and Ingrid’s curiosity heightened. She couldn’t help but feel, as Fillmore himself would put it, “butt-hurt” that whatever was currently occupying all his attention was not the music festival, which he knew meant a lot to her. Maybe he fell asleep with the stereo on again. As loud as it sounded, it wasn’t impossible – he’d done it many times before. Or, could he be looking back over old cases? He did that when he grew stressed – even if it was during the summer – and Ingrid noticed that Shelby had been getting on his nerves lately.

Ingrid rolled her eyes. She’d recently found herself growing to detest the mere mention of his new girlfriend. Fillmore was utterly smitten – for what reasons other than physical, Ingrid couldn’t wrap her mind around – so she did her best to be cordial at the very least, but Shelby was hard to be around. Ingrid made Shelby jealous, she knew, but Shelby would never let herself believe that Ingrid meant zero harm to her relationship with Fillmore. While Ingrid couldn’t stress it enough, Karen almost egged the brewing feud on. “I wanna see how long it’ll take this one to pop,” she’d said, referring to his past girlfriends’ issues with Ingrid, then added with a nudge, “or for you to pop her.”

Bruiser whined as she reached the top of the stairs, which pulled her out of thought long enough to notice Fillmore’s bedroom door was ajar. The pup darted for and pushed his way through it. Ingrid followed, ready to scold Fillmore for whatever-it-was that kept him from answering her anxious calls, but his name died on her lips as she saw what – or, rather, who – was lying behind the door… entangled with him on his bed.

Well, she thought, Shelby isn’t getting on his nerves today, at least.

Bruiser leaped onto the bed, startling Fillmore who didn’t hear their entry over the boom of his stereo. He looked fearfully over his very bare shoulder and, to his horror, saw Ingrid in the doorway with crossed arms and an amusing expression mixed between shock, humor, and embarrassment. Despite the way her jaw dropped upon seeing her best friend’s ass in the air, she couldn’t help but laugh at the blinding speed with which Fillmore flipped around and reached for the nearest blanket to cover himself with, which nearly propelled him off the bed and onto the floor.

“Oh,” Ingrid drawled with a Cheshire grin, despite the faint blush creeping into her cheeks. She leaned casually against the doorframe as Shelby sat up, not bothering to cover her bare chest, and glared in her direction, “so this is why you weren’t answering your phone.”

Fillmore, however, was not amused as he snatched the radio remote and turned the music off. “What the hell are you doing here, Ingrid?” he snapped as he tried to keep a too-happy Bruiser off his own too-happy lap.

“In case you’ve forgotten we kinda have big plans today,” Ingrid said lightly.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said through gritted teeth, which only made her grin wider. “I meant what are you doing right here, right now?”

“You wouldn’t answer your phone. I wanted to make sure you didn’t accidentally sleep in on me,” she replied and, despite the faint blush in her cheeks, she gestured coyly towards Shelby. “It hadn’t occurred to me that you might be sleeping in on her.”

Shelby’s eyes narrowed. “Then if you wouldn’t mind—” she threw the blankets off them and over Bruiser, then turned to straddle Fillmore’s lap. An incredulous laugh burst from Ingrid’s chest and she looked away. Did Shelby actually just—

“Shel, Jesus—” Fillmore groaned in protest as Shelby lowered herself on top of him. Right in front of me? Ingrid thought with a shudder. Was she serious? Did she have no shame?

Shelby looked over her shoulder at Ingrid. “—see yourself out,” she finished.

Ingrid, now insanely uncomfortable – Shelby certainly got what she wanted – backed towards the door. “Wow, yes, by all means, you two finish up,” she said as Fillmore muttered something in protest to Shelby. Risking a glance back in their direction, she asked, “Do you want the radio back on?”

“No,” Shelby barked as Fillmore grasped for the blanket, which Bruiser was still trying to free himself from, to cover up with.

“Ingrid, could you get the damn dog?” he begged almost painfully as Shelby drove her hips into his.

Ingrid crossed her arms, an amused smirk on her face. “What?” she asked. She hated herself for even thinking it, but this was Fillmore. She couldn’t resist. She knew he wouldn’t if the tables were turned. “No doggy style?”

“Get out,” they both snapped, but Ingrid couldn’t hold back a laugh. Bruiser finally poked his head out from the edge of the blanket, and she beckoned him over with a pat of her leg. He leapt off the bed and scrambled over to her.

“Remember Lobstee in the locker room, Fillmore?” she asked as she bent down to pick up the dog.

“How in the hell is that relevant?” he snapped. Shelby glared at her over her shoulder.

“It’s not, really. Karma’s just a bitch,” she joked with a self-satisfied smirk. He groaned behind her as she shut the door.

She put Bruiser down and shooed him in the direction of the stairs. Did that actually just happen? she thought, trying to ignore the too-enthusiastic noises coming out from under Fillmore’s door. She shuddered and quickly descended the stairs.

Well, she thought as she tried to block out the naked images from her mind, it was safe to say this friendship had been changed forever.

Chapter Text

Ingrid stomped through puddles as she made her way to her car. She hated wild goose chases. She’d been roaming the town in circles, each “lead” she got was either phony or too flimsy to run with. She’d been on her own since the bell rang. Of her own volition, of course, since Fillmore was too far behind on his schoolwork to be chasing vague, anonymous tips around town.

He warned her about the incoming rain. She hadn’t given it much thought – she quite liked the rain – but she’d realized one puddle too late that she picked the wrong day to not wear her trusty combat boots. Add getting her chain yanked to the misery of walking around in cold, wet socks, and Ingrid was crabby. She zipped up her leather jacket as the rain started to fall, again.

“How could there still be more?” she grumbled. She shoved her hands in her pockets and picked up her pace. If she could shrink farther underneath her hood, she would. It had long soaked through down to her hair and wasn’t providing any dry solace, but she could at least hide from any passersby. Finally, she saw her car parked and waiting for her down the street. Relief swept over her; she was a quarter-mile away from driving home and a nice hot shower.

As she approached the driver’s side door, she realized her pockets were empty.

She froze on the spot with a gasp, searching every pocket for her keys but coming up empty. She flooded with panic, as she could’ve dropped them anywhere: the florist, the bank, the secondhand gaming store, the arcade. She brought her shaking fingers up to her temples and closed her eyes, searching her memory for any clues.

Her eyes flashed open. Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me… Hands across her eyebrows, she peered in the window and saw them dangling from the ignition.

“Seven hells, Third,” she groaned, shaking her head. So close, yet so far. She drew in a deep breath, trying to stifle the rage bubbling in her chest long enough to assess her options: break a window (which is an absolute last resort), find someone with a hanger, call Fillmore or her father to bring her spare key—

She rolled her eyes. Of course, that would be the thing you think of last. She pulled out her phone and quickly dialed her dad’s number despite the rain pelting against the screen. She held it to her phone, tapping her feet impatiently. It rang and rang. She huffed. It was past six o’clock. He should be home by now. It rang some more. “Come on, Dad. Now’s not the time to—”

“Hi, you’ve reached Professor Third—”

Ingrid swore and immediately dialed their home phone. She bit her lip, her foot tapping faster now. She kept her eyes peeled for anyone who might be able to help, but the streets were devoid of people. The answering machine picked up and she sighed, closing her eyes until she could speak. “Hey, Dad, if you’re home please pick up. I’m locked out of my car on Main Street and need the spare key.” She hung up and dialed Fillmore’s number. He could get into her house or even help her break into her car if needed. Not like he hasn’t done it before. She let herself fall back against the car as the phone continued to ring. The last resort grew more and more appealing with each raindrop, but she took a deep breath. Patience, Third.

“Hey, it’s Fillmore. Leave a message.”

“Dammit,” she groaned and hung up with a sigh. She shoved her phone back in her pocket and pinched the bridge of her nose when it hit her.

She could probably break into her own car. She can pick a lock even better than Fillmore. She’s never tried it with a car, but how much harder could it be? Her pick kit was in her backpack, which of course was locked in the trunk… but she always had her trusty bobby pins on hand, courtesy of Fillmore.

Their cuffed hands sandwiched between their backs, Fillmore quietly fidgeted uncomfortably behind her. “Since when did perps start using actual handcuffs?” he complained in a whisper. “We don’t even use actual handcuffs. How is that fair?”

Ingrid sighed, counting all the exits, perps, vantage points, et cetera. “Considering our current situation, do you really think comparing apprehension techniques is the best use of your time?”

“I’m trying to get us out of here. What are you doing?” he asked, his voice dripping sarcasm. His fingers were fumbling with something in between their cuffed hands.

“What?” she asked as he pushed himself off the floor, pulling her hands towards him. “Ow—” she gasped, but Fillmore shushed her. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I can’t reach the lock on my cuffs.”

“With what? Your nonexistent fingernails?”

“Nah, I keep a bobby pin in my belt in case of emergencies,” he explained with a grunt of effort. Ingrid blinked. How hadn’t she thought of that?

“Fillmore, that’s genius.”

“You can thank me later.” He went quiet for a moment before he swore, and something bounced off her back.

“Please don’t tell me you just dropped it.”

“I didn’t just drop it. It… kinda sprung.”

“When we get out of here, I’m going to kill you.”

Ingrid reached for the pins she now kept at her back and got down on one knee. Fillmore was right: these really did come in handy. She struggled for a moment – the lock was hard to push through with flimsy bobby pins – before they slid inside. The cold rainwater soaked through her jeans, but she ignored it for the task on hand. It was harder than she expected. The bobby pins were bending all the wrong ways and she started to think they wouldn’t be strong enough to turn the lock. Maybe if she could—

Red and blue lights flashed off to her right, followed by a short burst of a siren. She froze, stifling the old delinquent urge to immediately flee, and sighed as the car quietly squealed to a stop a few feet from her.

So close, she thought, as she felt the bobby pins start to give. I was so close.

Chapter Text

Ingrid tapped the metal band of her pencil against the rim of her long-emptied coffee mug. Her eyes skimmed the report on the screen for clerical or grammatical errors (for the fourth time). She hated trying to look busy instead of actually being busy. She already finished her reports for the week and there was nothing to study or prep for.

With a sigh, she looked over at her partner’s empty desk. It was definitely much quieter without him around. He’d always find a way to keep things interesting, even if it annoyed her sometimes. Fillmore was job shadowing the police department today and wouldn’t be back until the last class of the day. Only another two hours, she told herself.

But desk duty was driving her crazy.

Dropping her pencil, she leaned back to stretch. It was hard being the dynamic duo with only one half of the duo in the building. The underclass officers answered most of the disturbances and inquiries for the day. Normally, Ingrid didn’t mind – she could use a break and they could use the experience – but Fillmore was almost always there. She rested her chin in the palm of her hand. She’d never admit it aloud… but, today, she was lonely.

Anza, two desks up from hers, hung up his phone and turned around to face her, a mischievous smirk on his face. “Hey, Ingrid—” she peered at him over her computer screen “—you bored?”

Thank God, she thought, distraction.

“Thought you’d never ask,” she replied. He chuckled and turned back around in his chair, typing something into his computer as she approached. “What do you got?”

“Apparently some skippers,” he answered. She leaned one hand on the back of his chair as he pulled up the student registry. “Never showed up to their last class but they were here this morning.” He opened up their student files, side by side.

“Love a good game of hide and seek,” Ingrid muttered. She took over his mouse and scrolled through each profile, despite Anza’s protests.

Nadina Hanover: fifteen-year-old sophomore transfer from Torrance High School. Plenty of tardies, occasional loitering. Nothing serious, but she was always caught with a different someone each time. So, she’s a follower. Flows with whatever crowd or person catches her. That person today was two-time senior bad boy heartthrob Weston Farley. Ingrid almost rolled her eyes. She’s dealt with him before. Major leather-and-chain-clad flirt. He enjoyed getting caught smoking behind bleachers almost as much as she enjoyed Fillmore getting protective any time he made a move on Ingrid during processing.

She shook that thought out of her head. Focus, Third. You know where he likes to hang out.

“Does Fillmore let you get away with this?” Joseph asked with a playful scolding smile as she pulled his keyboard closer and hit a few keys.

“Fillmore doesn’t like to read,” she responded before heading back to her desk to grab her badge and zip-cuffs. “I know where they might be.”

“Care to enlighten me?” he asked, locking his computer and standing up.

“On the way,” she said and rushed past him.

“Jeez, girl, slow down!” He jammed his badge onto his belt and jogged after her. “You were really bored, weren’t you?”

She groaned as she pulled the HQ door open and waited for him. “You have no idea.”

“So, where’re they hiding?” he asked once he caught up to her.

“I’ve never busted Nadina, so I don’t know much outside of her file. She’s a follower, likes getting into a little trouble, but nothing too big. Farley frequents the south field bleachers. Fancies a—”

“Wait a second, I know him,” he interrupted with a grin of recognition. Ingrid rolled her eyes – oh, boy, here we go, she thought. “Isn’t he the guy always getting into trouble so you can take him into custody?” She sighed with a nod and he laughed. “Oh, man, am I lucky T is stuck in the lab,” he joked, rubbing his hands together.

“You’re just glad you don’t have to watch her get hit on by a total tool,” she quipped with a knowing smirk. That shut him up for a beat.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, feigned confusion on his face, but his blushing gave him away.

“Oh, please.” Ingrid rolled her eyes as they approached the doors to the staircase. “I see the way you look at Fillmore every time they make some pass at each other.” She looked over her shoulder at him as she pushed through the door. “If looks could kill.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied, stomping through the door after her.

“Yes, you do. You’d much rather do the flirting but, as Fillmore would say, you’re too chicken shit.”

“Excuse me,” he said, his voice an octave lower than normal, which made her turn around. He pulled his badge off his belt and held it up. “I’m gonna ask you to watch your language.” Ingrid rolled her eyes and descended the stairs.

“Be glad that Karen’s not here while you can. If you don’t defend my honor in a way my self-appointed knight-in-shining-armor would approve, he’ll lance you with his sword when he gets back.”

“While I’m gonna ignore that obvious innuendo—” Ingrid rolled her eyes. Of course, he’d catch that. “—you can’t act like, deep down, you don’t love it,” he chuckled, and it was Ingrid’s turn to feign confusion. She should’ve known it was too risky to bring it up. “Oh, come on. Every girl loves a hot guy swooping in to save or stand up for her.” She raised her eyebrow at his choice of words and paused her step, and he stopped right behind her. He raised his hands. “Yeah, I said he’s hot. I’m secure.”

“Good to know.” She continued down the stairs a bit faster, her palms beginning to sweat.

“You’re so sure about something I may or may not feel,” he pointed out. Ingrid pushed through the doors into the South Wing hallway. “What makes me think this isn’t a ‘pot calling the kettle black’ situation?”

She inwardly swore. Was he onto her? “I do wear the most black,” she deflected. “Does that make me the kettle?”

“Makes you in denial.”

Crackers, Ingrid rolled her eyes. He was onto her, but she wouldn’t be one of the best detectives the force had ever seen if she couldn’t lie her way out of something so trivial. Sometimes, the best lies are half-truths, right? “So what if I might find his chivalry… endearing?” she admitted. Anza grinned and clapped.

“I knew it—”

And to redirect, she added, “Endearment and attraction are two entirely different things.”

He scoffed, a mad blush returning to his cheeks. “I’m not attracted to Karen,” he blurted, rushing past her to burst through the South Wing doors.

“You’re telling me there was never a moment where you looked a little too long at her luscious lips?” Ingrid asked with puckered lips.

“I don’t know why we’re talking about this,” he muttered, ignoring her question. “Or how we started talking about this.” He marched towards the bleachers. She could make out two figures underneath them, but they weren’t her primary objective at the moment.

“Or stood a little too close for a little longer than necessary?”

“No. You wanna drop it, Third?” he asked, shooting a half-hearted glare at her over his shoulder.

“Walked behind her so you could stare at her ass?”

He stumbled over his own foot, and Ingrid had to suppress a laugh. Got him. “N-No,” he managed to spit out.

“No need to lie,” she told him, winking at him over her shoulder. “She’s got a nice ass.”

“Please,” he jogged back up next to her, ready for a fight, “you’re telling me you don’t check out Fillmore’s ass?”

Her heart skipped a beat. Don’t falter, Third. So, she shrugged and answered, “I’m more of a shoulders gal.” These half-truths were coming in handy while she wracked her brain for better answers. She tried to not make a habit of checking out her partner but, oh, little did Anza know who she walked in on last summer. That memory made looking at him quite hard to resist some days.

“You check out his shoulders?” Anza asked with an arched brow.

“Anyone's. They can tell you all you need to know about a person: how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking or going to do. There’s mystery involved,” she explained as they approached the bleachers.

“Oh, come on. Everyone does it,” he encouraged. “You’re telling me what someone’s ass looks like underneath their jeans isn’t mysterious enough for you?”

“Not when I’ve already seen it in broad daylight,” she blurted. She cringed the moment it left her mouth, happy she was in front of him and couldn’t see her face. She didn’t mean to say that. Maybe Anza wouldn’t read into it.

But, he stopped in his tracks as she continued underneath the bleachers without him. “Wait, you mean—”

Oh, Fillmore was going to kill her.

“Well, well, well, if it ain’t Officer Third,” Farley crooned as he saw her. He took a long drag of his cigarette as Nadina stiffened. She looked up at him, eyes wide.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Farley,” Ingrid replied, a deceptively coy smirk on her lips. She hated this part; flirting to get him to cooperate. She was sure Anza could handle him, but he wasn’t Fillmore. It’d take Anza twice as long to apprehend him if he ran. Flirting was the most effective way to get him back to headquarters with minimal resistance.

“That’s what I’m sayin’ but you keep standin’ me up, sweetcheeks,” he said, his words puffs of smoke. Nadina eyed Ingrid enviously. She didn’t think Farley was truly interested in her, did she? He eyed Anza up and down before asking, “Where’s your usual cockblocker?”

Anza stepped forward, hand raised, and said with narrowed eyes, “Watch your mouth, pal.” Nadina stepped back behind Farley, clutching his bicep. Her eyes darted back and forth between the three of them. Ingrid noted this. Nadina clearly didn’t like conflict, but what made her think Farley would protect her? Farley was the typical ladies’ man, the real “notch in his bedpost” type. Quick to conquest by any manipulative means necessary and kick to the curb as soon as possible. He left trails of broken hearts behind him, which was why Fillmore hated him hitting on Ingrid so much. What bullshit had Farley been feeding Nadina that she’d cower so comfortably behind him?

“Officer Fillmore’s down at the police station,” Ingrid replied with a smirk, stifling the urge to sneer at him. “Playing with guns.”

“Guns?” Farley repeated, bringing the cigarette up to his lips. “Sounds like a bad influence to me.” He took a drag.

“Says the guy dragging minors under the bleachers for a smoke.”

Farley wiggled his eyebrows at her. “I’ll hide under your bleachers any day, baby.” He exhaled the smoke in her face with a shit-eating grin, and Ingrid had to smother the urge to gag.

“Put it out, Farley,” Anza ordered before she could respond.

“Or what, belt?” Farley stepped forward and Anza met him, chest-to-chest. “Gonna take me in? Rough me up a little?”

“If necessary.”

Farley jerked his head in Ingrid’s direction. “I’d rather she do it.”

Ingrid resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The stench of testosterone was increasing by the second. She almost wished Fillmore was there so it would at least be fun to watch. Having Anza in his place wasn’t as satisfying. “Play nice, boys,” she warned, watching Nadina back away from the corner of her eye, “or it’s going to be a long afternoon.” They needed to wrap this up before she bolted. Ingrid wasn’t sure she would, considering how she’d clung to Farley the moment they arrived, but she’s been wrong before.

Farley winked at her. “That’s what I’m countin’ on.”

“Last warning, punk,” Anza ordered, bringing Farley’s attention forward. Anza looked down at the cigarette. “Put it out.”

Farley lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, fine.” He ground the cigarette into Anza’s shoulder, who slapped his arm away and pushed him to the ground. Nadina took off in the other direction. Ingrid groaned and ran after her. “Wait up, aren’t you gonna cuff me?” Farley called to her, to which Anza made some snarky remark.

Nadina weaved through the steel beams of the bleachers. “Stop!” Ingrid yelled. Nadina cast a terrified look over her shoulder at Ingrid, who winced as she ran into a beam with a loud “bang”. She stumbled back, dazed, before trying to make another run for it. “Oh, no you don’t,” Ingrid muttered and pushed her back against the beam she collided with. Immediately, Nadina rambled.

“Look, they weren’t my cigarettes, I wasn’t even smoking, I just—”

“—wanted his attention,” Ingrid finished for her as she pulled her hands behind her back. “I know. I sensed that about you.” Nadina grunted as Ingrid zipped her wrists together. A nagging Ariella-like voice in the back of her mind told her to can it. Whatever “relationship” Nadina thought they had was none of Ingrid’s business. Nadina wouldn’t listen anyway, not with zip-cuffs around her wrists. But the urge to rescue the girl from herself was overwhelming… She had to try. Nadina started to protest, but Ingrid turned her around to face her. “Let me tell you something, Nadina.” She jerked her thumb behind them, towards Farley. “He might be hot, but his attention span is fickle. He’ll move on to the next girl the minute he’s gotten what he wants from you.”

Nadina’s green eyes flickered between the criminal and the officer in front of her. “You don’t get it. He’s different from the other guys,” she argued, blinking back tears and looking away.

Ingrid scoffed. “Why? Because he pays attention to you?”

“Because he doesn’t care what stuck-up belts like you think of him,” she snapped. Her sharpened eyes bored into Ingrid’s in a sneer. “You guys target him because he’s a ‘bad guy’, but you don’t know him like I do.”

Farley shouted something vulgar in Ingrid’s direction and Nadina scoffed in disbelief. Ingrid gave her a sympathetic smirk. “And you don’t know him like I do.” She gripped her by the bicep and lead her back to the others. She followed Anza and Farley back to headquarters but kept her distance. Nadina fought back tears the whole way, and Ingrid couldn’t help but feel for her.

Perhaps she’d been a bit harsh. Nadina wasn’t malicious or violent, and it wasn’t Ingrid’s place to give her life advice. Besides, Fillmore was better at that. She hated how many girls fell for his façade and how easily he got away with it. But it was foolish to believe a single conversation would be enough to change the young girl’s mind. Fillmore was right… for some reason, “chicks dig bad guys”. It would take one hell of a reality check for Nadina to come around… something akin to heartbreak.

Ingrid bit the inside of her cheek. It wasn’t fair. Ingrid had been lucky thus far, not having to deal with heartbreak from lovers. But she saw how breakups affected Fillmore, Karen, and Anza. Even Ariella had her fair share of unhappy endings. While Ingrid had never been through one herself, she could imagine. If only she could snap Nadina out of it.

She bit her lip. She shouldn’t have said anything. She knew better than to get involved. If only Fillmore were here… he’d know what to say. He was better with people. Ingrid was better with paperwork.

It wasn’t long before they reached headquarters. Anza and Farley bickered the entire way since Farley wouldn’t stop trying to get Ingrid’s attention. Anza enjoyed pushing him into interrogation and slamming the door behind him. Ingrid rolled her eyes and guided Nadina to her desk, dragging Fillmore’s chair over for her to sit in.

“Wait here,” Ingrid ordered. Nadina plopped down in the chair, glaring her way around the room.

“Bite me,” she muttered but, for the girl’s sake, Ingrid pretended not to hear. She simply sighed and walked over to the filing cabinet on the opposite side of the room, making sure to keep Nadina in her periphery. Anza appeared beside her.

“You weren’t kidding,” he said. She pulled open a drawer and searched for the confiscation and citation sheets. “That guy’s a real piece of work.”

“And he did a real number on her,” Ingrid replied, and Anza eyeballed the girl now pouting at Ingrid’s desk. Ingrid jerked her head towards the interrogation room. “You can handle him in there, right?”

“Oh, you don’t wanna take a crack at him?” he joked and pulled open a drawer a few spaces down.

“He is all yours,” she drawled as she finally found the sheets she was looking for and pulled them out with a flourish. She passed him the confiscation sheet (for the cigarettes) and he passed her Nadina’s file. It was considerably thinner than Farley’s, which was a novel in comparison. She turned to leave, but he stopped her with a raised hand.

“Ingrid, I gotta ask…” he trailed off, reading the room before leaning in an inch closer. She raised her eyebrow. “Earlier, when you said ‘seeing it in broad daylight’—”

Ingrid groaned. She’d forgotten about that. She slammed the drawer shut and walked away. “Don’t read too far into it, Anza.”

But he stuck to her side, leaning close to keep the conversation quiet. “You’ve seen his ass?”

Beside herself, she stopped in her tracks, clenching her eyes shut. He stood next to her, eyes filled with curious excitement, and she sighed. There was no avoiding it now, Third. Might as well tell him. “I…” His eyes widened with anticipation. “…I might’ve walked in on him with Shelby once.”

Anza could hardly contain himself. He laughed heartily, fanning himself with Farley’s file. Ingrid pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to hide the growing heat in her cheeks. “Come on, Ingrid, that’s not the kinda info you withhold!”

She glared at him, pointing her finger in his face. “You tell him I told you that and I’ll have Tehama frame your ass for counterfeiting or something.”

“Oh, please, you’re lucky she doesn’t frame you for not telling her,” he countered, making Ingrid falter. He had a point. With all the flirting those two did, Tehama would kill to walk in on something like that. Fillmore would never hear the end of it. In the end, he was lucky it was Ingrid. “Just answer me one thing—” Anza began, but Ingrid waved him off.

“You already know more than you should, Joseph.” She started towards her desk. “Don’t push your luck.”

“Milk or dark chocolate?”

Taken aback by the question, she froze as she registered what he meant. The officers around them tuned into their conversation with such a random question. Why was Anza asking Third about chocolate preferences?

Oh, if they only knew. And now there was no dodging that question, not with everyone looking at her. Anza knew how her memory worked and he used that against her. Her photographic memory flipped right to that day the moment the question left his lips. She recalled Fillmore nearly falling off the bed to cover himself, and she took a deep breath in to quell her now-racing heart. Damn him, she swore to herself. No getting out of this one, Third. Just tell him what he wants to hear. You’ve both got perps to process. Spit it out and get him off your back.

“Milk chocolate,” she blurted through an exasperated sigh. Anza cackled behind her as she got back to her desk, Nadina eying her inquisitively. Ingrid sat down in her own chair and slapped the file down on her desk before rubbing her eyes.

Oh, Fillmore was going to kill her.

xXxXx

The final bell rang and Ingrid gathered her things, desperate to finally get home to her reading nook. Thanks to Anza, it took all she had to keep the naked memory of her partner from the forefront of her mind. As much as she’d missed Fillmore today, she’d rather not see him until she could cleanse her palette, so to speak. She was hoping the advanced calculus would do the trick.

Butterflies lurched in her abdomen and she shuddered. Apparently not. She gulped as she left the classroom, books clutched against her pounding heart. While it was the most direct route to her car, if she could avoid walking past HQ—

“Not so fast, mama!”

Her heart plunged to her feet. Damn, damn, damn him. She turned just in time to see Fillmore coming up behind her. His arms stretched wide, that damned leather jacket lifted his shirt up just far enough to reveal the waistband of his briefs. She shot him a cool smile despite the lustful heat spreading through her belly.

“Miss me?” he asked as he fell into step beside her.

Play it cool, Third. He’ll never suspect. “Weston Farley sure did,” she answered, keeping her eyes forward.

Fillmore rolled his eyes as they turned the corner. “Yeah, I heard. Anza filled me in.”

Ingrid’s heart skipped a few beats. Anza already got to him? She tucked some loose hair behind her ear as they reached her locker. “You stopped by HQ already?”

“Yeah, had to grab my keys. Left ‘em in my desk.” Shit, she thought. Maybe Anza was nice enough not to run his mouth. Something deep inside of her doubted it, but she wouldn’t prematurely out herself. He wasn’t giving off any clues, but if Fillmore knew, he’d bait her eventually. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. She only had to wait for it. “Farley didn’t get too creepy or handsy or anything, did he?”

Ingrid spun her combination with a scoff. “Like he’d still have hands if he did.”

“That’s my girl,” he praised, that damned Fillmore-half-smirk on his face. She only allowed herself a quiet chuckle in response. Her nerves were rapid-firing down straight to her fingers. She couldn’t risk saying anymore. This whole feeling-attracted-to-Fillmore thing was beginning to wear down her undercover-proof resolve. It was infuriating. How had she let her feelings come this far? She needed to pull it together. “Anything else interesting happen while I was gone?” he asked. She swung her locker open.

“Nope,” she lied, dropping her calculus book at the bottom of her locker and reaching for her lunch bag. “Unfortunately, Farley was the ‘highlight’ of the day.”

Fillmore let out a guttural groan of disgust and fell back against the locker next to her. “He’s the worst kind of highlight,” he said, crossing his arms. “Which poor unfortunate soul did he drag to detention with him this time?”

“Nadina Hanover,” she answered and grabbed George R. R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons to read when she got home. “Although, she didn’t get detention.”

Fillmore raised an eyebrow. “You let her slide?”

She shrugged as she zipped up her bag. “She’s only had a few minor citations, nothing too foreboding. It was her first time skipping and she wasn’t the one smoking. I let her off with another citation and a warning.” She slammed her locker shut and slung her bag over her shoulder. “She’ll get burned next time she gets caught, but I felt for her.”

Both his eyebrows shot up this time. “Really?”

She sighed as they walked off. “He had her wrapped around his finger. She’s convinced he thinks she’s ‘special’.”

“And this bothers you… why?”

She ran a hand through her hair, scoffing in frustration. She honestly didn’t know. She hated how much Farley’s “conquesting” bothered her. Maybe because of what Karen called “girl code”. Or because she would’ve hated that happening to herself. Or because he always got away with acting like a pig without punishment. Girls still lined up to date him in spite of his reputation, all certain that “it would be different with me”.

Maybe, she was jealous, or she subconsciously craved that kind of attention. She was a teenage girl, so of course, it would be normal, but Ingrid has never been that kind of girl. Yet, ever since Fillmore not-so-gracefully dropped that bombshell on her last Halloween, she noticed more lingering eyes in the hallways. While she prided herself on being able to disappear, a part of her enjoyed the attention. It gave her the tiniest boost in confidence.

“I don’t know,” she finally answered as they weaved their way through the bustling crowd. “I just can’t stand the guy. He’s a prick.”

Fillmore chuckled. “You got that right.”

“It’s just…” She shoved her anxious hands in her pockets, trying to piece together the words. “I hate how he uses girls, and she was so blind to it. She refused to believe he’s going to hurt her.”

Fillmore sighed and looked down at her with understanding eyes. “All you can do is speak your mind, even if they don’t wanna hear it. You’re not responsible for someone else’s heartbreak, Ing.”

“Even though I can prevent it?”

“Especially then.”

She sighed as they approached the front doors of X High. “I guess you’re right,” she muttered and pulled out her aviators.

He smiled warmly down at her, making her heart flutter. “They can’t say our resident Joan of Arc—” Ingrid smirked at the use of his long-time pet name for her, “—doesn’t have a heart.” He nudged her shoulder and she cracked a smile.

“How’d it go with Officer Robbins?”

Fillmore lit up like a Christmas tree. “Girl, I thought you were never gonna ask!” He pushed the door open for her and she slinked through with a silent nod of gratitude. “I’ll tell you all about it over a candy raid.”

Ingrid paused. “A candy raid?” she asked, pushing her sunglasses up her crinkled nose.

“Hell yeah, partner,” he confirmed whipping out his keys. Hot on her heels, he continued. “A little birdie told me when I got back that you were craving something milk chocolate.”

Ingrid groaned. He baited her, hook, line, and sinker, and she hadn’t even noticed. Damn him. Heat rushed into her cheeks and Fillmore stopped right behind her. Her back to his chest, she could feel him grinning down at her. She swore under her breath, glaring up at the sun. Fillmore gripped her arms and leaned down over her right shoulder. “I hear the ZX has the best variety of chocolate in the area,” he teased. She set her jaw, resisting the urge to look at him. “My treat, of course.”

She shook her head, biting off a string of obscenities at the tip of her tongue. She was an officer, after all. “Your treat, my ass.”

“Really?” he asked. He let go of her shoulders and walked backward past her, flashing her one of his cocky smiles. “I thought it was my ass in question?”

She couldn’t help it; an embarrassed smile adorned her lips. She set herself up for that one, but he wasn’t getting off scot-free. “Anyone ever told you you’re a cocky son of a—”