Author's Notes: Unbeta-ed

Story Notes: Implied Kowalski/Gardino

"Ray. Ray. Ray. Ray."

Ray is standing in front of his roll-top desk. He looks up at me, his face a mix of emotions I'd hoped were banished - loss regret, failure - but of course we're here in the minefield of his apartment. I should anticipate a few explosions.

"We're gonna need a few more boxes. There's some empties in the basement I think." He pushes past me and is out the door before I have time to scratch an eyebrow.

I move to the desk and straight away swoop on a handful of photos carefully lodged in the trash pile under an old takeout menu. Rescuing them reveals most are of Stella, and I'm happy to discard them too. One is with his father standing proudly either side of a newly restored GTO. I slide it into my shirt pocket. Even if Ray wants to cast off his past I treasure this glimpse of his youth.

One slightly creased photo is of some impossibly young-looking men in impossibly new-looking CPD uniforms with impossibly shiny buttons, arms flung round each other, beers in hand. Their faces are not yet creased by care and cynicism. And one of these new officers is Ray, pressed up against another young man whose face I know. A man I last saw outside Pat Scarpelli's restaurant three years ago, whose flag-draped coffin I had helped to bear.

Ray's footsteps sound in the hall. I slide the photo into my pocket with the other.