A/N: Much thanks to everyone who liked, reviewed, and faved this chapter! If you get a second I'd love if you could let me know what you think of this chapter. It's kind of a filler chapter but I hope you get a kick out of it anyway.

Chapter Two

The Blame Game

"Have you ever been alone in a crowded room?"

-Dark Blue/Jack's Mannequin

No such luck on the Lady Gaga front. The setting of Caroline's dream that night manifested as a loud, crowded concert. Which was not so terrible, relatively speaking, unless you happened to be an autistic, antisocial recluse who sometimes got anxious at particularly crowded crime scenes, in which case a dream about a crowded concert hall could constitute a nightmare.

The result of this: The next day, Caroline wakes up in an even more sour mood than usual. (This is exacerbated by the fact that her co-workers, apparently, have not yet grown bored of teasing her partner via shitty acapella pop songs.)

And the result of that: She spends most of the morning sulking as she fills out reports, and treats herself to an extra, but desperately needed, coffee break.

And upon returning from said coffee break, she finds a petite blonde sitting in front of Clive's empty desk, tucking a stapler into her purse.

Caroline sets her coffee on her own desk, and then leans against it. "Are you trying to steal that stapler?"

The other girl jumps slightly-apparently she hadn't heard Caroline approach-and looks up at her. "No," she says, setting it back on the desk uneasily. "I was just looking at it."

Caroline arches a brow, studying her. She considers pressing the issue, but honestly, attempted theft of office supplies is below her pay grade, and she doesn't have the energy to deal with it. Besides which, it only takes a moment of observation for Caroline to connect the smaller woman's pale skin and hair with Clive's description from the previous day.

"You're the psychic." It's not a question.

"...Um." Caroline's accusatory tone seems to have caught the woman off guard, but before she can respond, Clive is settling back into his chair, looking supremely annoyed.

"Miss Cleo," he greets the woman across from him. "I see you've met my partner."

"Yes," she replies, sounding impatient.

"I just got here," Caroline clarifies, although she's not sure why.

"Well, let's catch up. Miss Moore, this is Detective Caroline Abruzzo. Abruzzo, Olivia Moore. The junior M.E."

"I figured," Caroline replies, at the same time the M.E. in question chimes in with "It's Liv."

Clive doesn't respond to either comment, but he turns his attention fully to the woman in front of him. "So tell me: is my day going to get worse?"

Liv seems to bristle at this; Caroline gets the sense that she's feeling ganged up on. The sound of more Lady Gaga-based harassment is grating, but not unexpected; Liv, however, turns around to find the source, before turning back to the detectives, looking amused.

"I think those guys want your bad romance," she tells Clive. "Unless singing Lady Gaga around the precinct is a cop thing."

"Only after one of their peers proudly reports Stefani Germanotta as the name of the murder victim," Clive replies. "That name you gave me? It's Lady Gaga's real name."

"Wait, so Lady Gaga isn't her real name?"

This comment almost endears Liv to Caroline, just a little, but she fights back the sentiment out of loyalty to Clive and out of resentment over her workplace being filled with more nonsense than usual.

Clive narrows his eyes.

Liv clears her throat. "The Jane Doe must have given that name to the police when she was arrested," she suggests. "It's still the girl."

Clive doesn't answer. Instead, he goes into a monologue about the trouble he's had building his reputation in homicide. Caroline zones out about five words into it, because she's heard it before. It's a valid concern for him to have. It's also super boring to hear about.

She tunes back in when Liv finally jumps in. "I saw something," she says.

"Saw with your eyes, or saw with your 'gift'?"

Liv ignores this. "I saw who killed Stef-who killed our Jane Doe."

"That's great. Do tell." Clive reaches for a pen and clicks it. "What's his name? I'll go pick him up, maybe grab some lunch." He must be super pissed, because he's always sarcastic, but he's usually less aggressive about it.

Liv hesitates for a long moment. Finally: "Johnny Frost."

Clive stares at her. Caroline glances between them, and searches her mind for a face to put to the name. She knows she's heard it before, but it sounds like a cartoon character. She slips into her head for only a moment, and then Clive is nudging her.

"You coming, Abruzzo?"

"Yeah." Caroline doesn't hesitate. She has no idea where she's following him to, but she trusts him, generally. She glances at Liv, who seems stunned and put out at all once.

"Great." Clive heads for the front door to the precinct. Caroline follows him, pocketing her hands. Liv doesn't, and although he doesn't turn around, he seems to sense the doctor's hesitation, because he snaps "Zelda Rubenstein, pick up the pace!" before going outside.

Caroline bumps shoulders with him lightly to get his attention. "Johnny Frost?" she asks in a stage whisper.

"Weatherman from channel 11," he mutters back. "Do you own a TV?"

"I don't know what that is," she replies flatly. "It sounds like witchcraft."

"Mhm." Clive leans against the driver's side of the squad car, glancing at the door to the precinct. Liv is making her way to them, if reluctantly. "How much did you miss in there while you were trying to figure it out?"

"I put the pieces together," she assures him.

"Great."

Caroline's had the same spinner ring since she first moved to Seattle. It's etched with moon and star shapes, and it's dull from frequent use; she wears it every day.

Now, in the channel 11 news studio, she's spinning it nonstop, holding it between her thumb and forefinger in the pocket of her jacket so as to not be obvious about it. She does it without thinking. As a kid, she used to flap her hands, but this behavior was quickly trained out of her.

She can't focus without doing something with her hands, though; she doesn't know how anyone else can. So the ring is a good compromise. It allows her to do her job, which currently consists of watching some rando predict the weather, while also not distracting other people by being too noticeable with her hands.

Caroline's not sure why hand-flapping-a largely innocuous gesture-is taken as a personal offense by other people, but telling people obvious shit that they already know (spoiler alert: it's going to rain, because they live in the Pacific Northwest, and it never fucking stops raining) is considered admirable. But she doesn't make the rules. And she likes her ring better at this point, anyways.

A bell rings. Someone yells "cut," and then someone else yells "That's great, Johnny, that's great," and then Liv turns to them and says "Yep, that is definitely the guy from my vision. Can I go now?"

"Oh, hell, no," Clive replies. "We're about to know if you're the real deal or a one-trick pony."

Quite frankly, Caroline wouldn't mind if Liv left. She's used to working with Clive alone, and having Liv along is throwing her slightly off-kilter. Not enough to make her lose focus-just a small, but persistent annoyance. Like an itch she can't scratch, only in the back of her brain. Plus, she still blames the smaller girl for the Lady Gaga debacle, and hasn't forgiven her for it yet.

But Clive seems to have a personal stake in the question of Liv's legitimacy as a psychic, so Caroline keeps quiet.

"Oh, what? You're gonna say 'my psychic friend here says you're a murderer! Sign this confession!'"

Caroline smiles a little at this, and turns away to hide it, transferring her attention to Johnny Frost, who is being fussed over by a brunette in a blue shirt. The woman is unclipping his microphone, and then cleaning makeup off his face, and then the man begins to walk away, winking in what is either her or Liv's direction, she's not sure. Or then again, maybe the wink is directed at Clive. Or any combination of the three. She doesn't know his life. Except that he's possibly a murderer, but that's still up in the air.

Clive stops him before he can get too far. "Excuse me, Mr. Frost," he says, holding out a photo of their Jane Doe.

Johnny Frost must not look too closely, because he pulls out a pen. "Of course! Who do I make it out to?"

"Seattle police department," Clive replies, flashing his badge.

The weatherman frowns in confusion, and looks down at the photo, and his eyes widen in fear. Not so up in the air, then.

Caroline glances at Liv, who's smirking a little.

"I take it you know her?" Clive asks.

"I don't. Any more questions, you can ask with my lawyer present."

Caroline's never seen someone lawyer up that fast before.

Frost starts to walk away, shooting a comment in Liv's direction about needing some sun, but Liv stops him.

"Heeeere's Johnny," she says.

Caroline has the vague sense she gets when she knows she's hearing a pop culture reference, somehow, but has no idea what it's from or what it's about. A result of watching a lot of allusion-happy cartoons as a kid that she doesn't consciously remember in detail. She doesn't know why Liv says it, but it gets a reaction.

Frost turns around and comes back over, almost whispering. "Did she record our sessions?" he demands, but Caroline doesn't have time to wonder about the comment, because he doesn't wait for an answer before putting on a charming smile and saying "Look, I'm a beloved public figure, isn't there something we could do to just make this go away?"

Caroline scoffs. "Sorry. When it comes to murder, we don't generally take pinky-promises as a guarantee against second offences."

Frost's face falls. "Murder? Wait, Tatiana's dead?"

Huh.

"Can you account for your whereabouts Monday evening?" Clive replies.

"I was here! On live TV at six and eleven, doing the weather. I have 100,000 eye witnesses."

The number he gives doesn't sound right to her, but she decides not to question it.

"We're gonna need you to tell us everything you know about Tatiana," she says instead.

Frost's office is full of paperwork and framed pictures and a corkboard with fan letters pinned onto it. His desk is covered in pointless skymall-esque conversation pieces-a tiny magnetic globe, a newton's cradle, and a couple things that she doesn't recognize, but she's sure serve a similar nonexistent purpose. She tucks her hands back into her pockets to keep herself from touching them.

Frost pulls up a webpage on his computer. Caroline recognizes their Jane Doe first-Tatiana, she corrects herself internally-and then recognizes the site itself as an escort website.

"See? Roleplaying," Frost says. "The trophy wife and the intruder was one of our go-tos."

"That's really weird," Caroline comments.

Frost looks mildly offended, and Clive shoots her a warning look. Don't antagonize him. We need him to cooperate.

Caroline rolls her eyes. "My bad," she says, holding her hands palms up. "No judgies."

Frost shakes his head and turns back to the screen. "How do you even know about this? Did you talk to Tess?"

"Who's Tess?" Clive asks.

"Her friend." Frost clicks a link on the site, and a picture of Tatiana with another girl pops up. The girl looks older than Tatiana, with big brown eyes and curly brown hair, but they share the same "come hither" stare. Caroline wonders if the bedroom eyes come naturally to them, or if there are some cast-off photos somewhere of the two women trying and failing to look inviting.

The thought brings up the memory of her first and only attempt at sexting from college, and she wrinkles her nose slightly. Disastrous. It's good that she decided to go into law enforcement, because she would never have made it as a sex worker.

"Have they worked together a lot?" Clive asks.

"I don't know; I only doubled the fun once on my birthday."

"I mean, Tatiana has Tess listed on her own website," Caroline points out. "If I were a prostitute, I wouldn't do that unless I felt comfortable working with her."

Clive shoots her a look that's somewhere between surprised and annoyed. Frost seems to find the words "if I were a prostitute" evocative, though, because he glances her over in a way that makes her pull her jacket more tightly around herself, lifting her upper lip in a silent imitation of a growl.

Clive steps between them, pointedly blocking Frost's view of his partner, and Caroline relaxes. She's not afraid of Johnny Frost-she's the one holding the gun, after all- and the look was fairly innocuous anyway, but she likes knowing Clive has her back. "You have an address for her?"

"It's not like I sent her a Christmas card," Frost says impatiently.

"Call me if you think of anything else," Clive replies, handing the weatherman a card.

Caroline takes this as her cue to leave and opens the door. She ignores the cramp in her finger, even as she realizes that she's been spinning her ring nonstop the entire time.