While the Heart Beats, pt. 8

Author's Note: This chapter officially concludes the "While the Heart Beats" saga. I hope you've enjoyed this story as much as I have, and I do apologize for the long wait. Happy to be back and much more to come from your favorite evasive author!

"I stared up at the sun
Thought of all the people, places and things I've loved
I stared up just to see
Of all of the faces, you were the one next to me..."
- OneRepublic, "If I Lose Myself"

It didn't happen often in New York, but every once in a while, there was no sound.

Not to say that the car horns weren't still blaring - they always would be, in his city, and he didn't have to walk far to hear laughter and conversations in a hundred dialects, overlapping in a beautiful mosaic of sound on the streets around him.

But sometimes, for Jamie, it all faded.

For example, the night he lost his mother.

To this day, all it took was a sudden, unexpected drift of honeysuckle in the air or the sight of a dark-haired woman in a camel-colored Burberry trench coat on the sidewalk for him to be transported instantly back into her arms, and it was in that memory he preferred to stay - his mother, whole and healthy, her face sunlight and her smile a mirror of his own. But he could still remember, with a clarity brought on by shock, how his wandering feet had taken him to the Tribeca sailing pier the night she died, and how he had stared with sightless eyes over the quiet waters of the Hudson where the muted sounds of Manhattan couldn't quite reach. It had been silent, so silent, and he could still remember the chill in the air; the glitter of moonlight on the water. He had stood there in that silence and wondered how he could be huddled at the feet of one of the world's biggest cities and still feel so suddenly, hopeless alone.

He had noticed the silence, too, on the occasional morning as he finished a graveyard shift, staring blearily as the sun cracked the horizon over Brooklyn Heights. Vinny would always sigh and squint like a vampire at the rays, immediately throwing down the sun visor in the squad, but Jamie would blink away his exhaustion to take in the stillness with interest, watching as the city took a long, easy stretch and popped its back in anticipation of a new day.

He had a vague impression that the silence might have happened at Vinny's funeral, too, somewhere between the bagpipes and the words of the priest, but he wasn't sure. Most of that day had been a haze.

And if he was completely honest with himself, he still felt, sometimes, like he was moving through that same haze still. He dreaded work because reminders of Vinny followed him everywhere, in the precinct and on their familiar beat, and every time he saw that goofy grin in his mind a fresh twist of guilt splashed in with it. You didn't save him, Reagan, his conscience would helpfully remind him, each and every time. Two of you went into Bitterman. How do you explain being the only one to come out?

As if that wasn't bad enough, the tours themselves were even worse. He dreaded the calls almost as much as the spaces between them, and when the long shifts finally ended, he dreaded his silent apartment. He slept some, ate a little. On Sundays, he went to his father's house and pretended the salad and beef didn't taste like paper in his mouth, eating just enough to avoid questions, hoping his father was distracted enough by the latest crisis at work to miss the exhaustion in his eyes. Jamie knew it was there; saw it every time he looked in the mirror, despite his best efforts. He knew how to force himself through the mechanics of the day, but he had no idea what to do for that emptiness in his eyes; the hollow place inside his soul. It was dark there, and he had no light to find his way. It was silent, and he couldn't escape the crushing weight of its emptiness.

Every once in a while, that darkness, that silence, spilled out into everything around him, and he was helpless to stop it.

Like now.

A late August sun was above him, its afternoon glare relentless. His black uniform drank in the heat, and sweat ran into his eyes, but he didn't dare pause to swipe it away. He just kept running, and took a quick dart left to avoid a homeless woman with a packed shopping cart before hanging a sharp right into a narrow alley. If she shouted at him to watch where he was going, he didn't hear it, any more than he heard his own ragged breaths or his feet pounding rhythm on the pavement. There was only Renzulli's voice, tight and controlled in his ear from his shoulder radio, calling out his best guesses on the location of their fleeing suspect, the squad's tires squealing and its siren a distant wail in the background. That, though, even that was hard to make out past the desperate beats of his heart, thundering double-time against his ribcage.

He'd lost track of how long he had been running. It felt like ten minutes, fifteen, but of course that couldn't be right. He and Renzulli had only spotted the kid a few minutes before, and the teenager had looked suspicious from the get-go, his gym bag stuffed and heavy even though there wasn't a Gold's within a square mile. The kid spotted the squad, then turned cartoonishly wide eyes upon Renzulli and Jamie, and the chase was on. The surge of energy that had dumped into Jamie's veins as he shoved open the passenger door and darted after the kid had made time irrelevant, the traffic meaningless, and sound a waste. There was only heat, baking him alive, and Renzulli's guiding voice, and fear.

Fear. A bit of fear was good for a cop. It taught reflection, respect. But this much?

God, don't let me screw up again.

"Think he just dumped the bag behind Sofia's on Mulberry - he's turning east, Reagan. You on him?"

He was, somehow, thanks to the rigid police procedures ground hard and deep into him at the academy. Cut off the suspect. Gain the advantage. Jamie knew the Little Italy area well enough to narrow down the suspect's options, and the kid was almost certainly bolting down nearby Euclid Alley, a narrow twist of dumpsters and razor-wire fencing with a violent history. If he made it through there, he would tumble out onto Grand Street, within spitting distance of the tourist haunts. The teenager would have no trouble blending into the fabric of busy streets and busy shops there.

If Jamie could cut him off; just get to him first, it would be over. A textbook procedure. Nothing to it.

Except...

Except the last time he had been in a foot chase, it had ended with his partner dead in his arms.

Fear surged again, unbidden, and when he sucked in his next breath it felt like sand going down.

)()()()()()()()()()(

When Jamie had started riding with Renzulli again, just three days after Vinny's funeral, Jamie had been up front about his concerns. There was no reason to hide, after all, and especially not from Renzulli. "I'm just not sure what I'll do," Jamie had admitted, slouching deep in the passenger seat of the squad and staring down at the lid of his disposable coffee cup. He hated even speaking the words aloud; giving them power by letting them out of the dark spaces of his mind. "I don't want to be a liability to you, Sarge."

"Sit up straight," Renzulli snapped in reply, and Jamie automatically responded to the sharp note of authority in his voice, straightening up. "Jeez, kid, did I teach you nothing? Respect that uniform ya got on. You're an NYPD officer, not some punk about to sleep through sophomore English. And what am I, your mom?"

"Sorry," he said quickly, checking his shirt for wrinkles and running a hand over the fabric to smooth it against the bulletproof vest he wore beneath. "But Sarge, seriously. What if-"

Renzulli held up a hand. "Reagan. Please. You got nothing to worry about. You know this job is about as exciting as watching grass grow ninety-five percent of the time."

"Yeah, sure," he muttered. "Except when we're, I don't know, rescuing babies from burning buildings?"

"That was all you, Superman."

"Or arresting three dozen people at a time for disorderly conduct."

"Thank God New Year's Eve comes but once a year."

"Or getting thrown down flights of stairs."

Renzulli's eyes rolled. "So we've had a little excitement."

Jamie grinned a little, despite himself. "Or trying to get perp descriptions from those girls in the West Village."

"In my own defense, I had no idea those were drag queens. They looked better than my wife."

Jamie opened his mouth to continue, but Renzulli cut him off. "Your point, Reagan."

He sobered. "My point is the five percent, Sarge. The important stuff."

"Yeah? What exactly are you worried about? You think you've all of a sudden forgotten everything I taught you? All the stuff you've learned the last couple years?"

"No."

"Then what?"

Jamie bit his lip. "I'm just afraid it'll be different. That I'll hesitate, you know?"

Renzulli drummed his fingers against the steering wheel of the squad, considering that. "Nah," he finally decided, and nodded his head as if to make it so. "You'll be fine. Have some faith in yourself, kid."

"How can you be so sure?" Jamie ran a thumb over the white plastic of the coffee lid. "I don't... I'm not sure how I'll respond if something happens, Sarge. I mean, you know how your mind switches off in those situations, and you just... you just act?"

"You did fine when you came back after the shooting in Washington Square Park," Renzulli pointed out, and Jamie grimaced at the oversharp memory that sprang unbidden to his mind, seeing the gun in his hands and the older man sprawled dead on the pavement before him, blood rapidly soaking his dress shirt from a pair of bullets Jamie himself had fired. Renzulli, however, plowed on. "Don't sell yourself short there, Reagan. That was a big deal."

"Yeah, but this..." Jamie sighed. "This is different, Sarge. This was my partner, you know?"

"I know," he replied, voice gentling.

"So, what if I freeze? Or I screw something up? What if-"

"Your training will kick in, and you'll do the job like you've always done," Renzulli replied. "And you've got the Reagan killer instincts on top of that. You have my personal guarantee, kid. You're gonna be fine."

Jamie managed a half-smile and looked over at Renzulli, who was now slouched comfortably behind the wheel of the squad himself. "I appreciate that, Sarge, but... how can you know for sure?"

Renzulli grinned. "I know you."

)()()()()()()()()()(

And Jamie had to admit, it was comfortable, being back with Renzulli again. He honestly wasn't sure he could've handled anyone else. They fit together in the easy way good partners did. Renzulli complained, Jamie ascertained. Jamie reflected, Renzulli launched. It worked, and it was easy. They were a good team.

Except now, Renzulli was only a lonely voice in his ear, a little more insistent now that Jamie had gone silent, but he didn't have breath to answer. They were separated by blocks of concrete and fencing and asphalt anyway; it wasn't like Renzulli could be much help to him now, and Jamie was surging headlong and alone down Euclid after a fleeing suspect who was somewhere ahead, hopefully just around the next bend and not lying in wait behind one of the dumpsters or piles of abandoned tires up ahead.

He couldn't think about that. He couldn't let himself think, because the fear was already pressing down on him and he couldn't let it rush into panic. He had to just keep going; trust his training and trust his instincts and force air into his sealing lungs and just go. He'd chased suspects before. Nothing to it. This wouldn't end with the firecracker pop of bullets or a uniform sodden with blood. No one was going to die. Not today.

Not today.

Jamie gasped for breath, his chest tight and burning, his vision blurry from exertion, and ignored the fear. It clung to him stubbornly, cold in the sweat on his overheated skin, but it couldn't stop him from surging forward, past the dumpster and piles of trash that concealed no one, and he didn't have time to be grateful. Instead, he skidded around the alley's final twist, just yards away from the alley's exit now, one hand hovering close to his gun holster, his muscles trembling from exhaustion, but stopped short when he saw-

Grand Street, just a short jog ahead, but framed out in pretty little diamonds by an imposing ten-foot chain link fence he hadn't been expecting, sealing off the alley from an easy exit. It was topped with a generous twist of barbed wire, and trapped inside it was none other than his suspect, a kid no older than sixteen, scrabbling anxiously and yelping every time the wire bit into his skin. "Hey man! Hey man, get me down! What the hell!"

"Hold it right there," Jamie wheezed, still fighting for air. He could see that the kid's hands were empty, his bag of stolen goods long discarded and no weapons evident as he clung to the fence desperately, legs pretzeled in the cutting wire, his white T-shirt hung up haphazardly in the blades. "Don't move."

"I can't move!" the kid shouted back. "It hurts, man! Get me loose!"

Jamie grabbed his radio. "12-Sargent, I have one in... custody, Euclid at Grand," he managed between pants.

"10-4, 12-Sargent responding. Thirty seconds out."

Jamie stepped up to the fence, testing its strength before scaling it quickly, his moves easy and practiced from a childhood spent chasing Danny and Joe back and forth over the fences of the 79th Street playground. "Hey man! Hey man!" the kid screamed, as Jamie's movement caused the fence to wobble. "Don't do that!"

"You want to get loose or not? Hold still." Jamie pulled himself up almost to eye level with the suspect, and reached in carefully to frisk him, checking the waistband of his jeans and running his free hand down the kid's legs, wincing when one of the barbs sliced the back of his hand.

"I got nothing on me, man! C'mon!" the kid wailed, as an NYPD squad car suddenly shrieked to a stop at the alley's mouth, red and blue lights twirling. Renzulli climbed out in short order, checking in with Central on his own radio as he jogged forward.

Jamie leaned left to see him. "He's clean, Sarge. Gonna need the wire cutters for this job, though."

Renzulli thumbed his hat back on his head to peer up at the suspect, who had finally stilled, though obscenities were beginning to replace his frantic movements. "Hey, goofball! If you'da quit running when we told ya to, you'd only be putting up with a fancy pair of bracelets." He grinned, then looked at Jamie. "You all right, kid?"

Jamie nodded and eased himself down the fence carefully. His knees shook when he landed and he paused for a moment, curling his fingers around the links of the fence. He took a breath - shaky - then another, and the second went down a little smoother.

"Reagan," Renzulli said. The sarge was still on the other side of the fence, and motioning Jamie away, towards the alley walls. Backup was filtering in from Grand Street, the cops chuckling as they eyeballed the foul-mouthed suspect and started climbing up to free him from the barbed wire. Jamie stepped away, glad to turn the suspect over. His muscles were jelly and fear trembled on in his spine, prickling his skin like sparks.

Somehow, Renzulli seemed to know this. His dark gaze was piercing through the chain links. "Kid," he said.

Jamie nodded. "I'm good."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." He hesitated, taking stock of himself. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Renzulli nodded back, grinning. "So now can I say I told ya so?"

His brow furrowed. "Told me what?"

"That you had nothing to worry about." He grinned. "When ya gonna learn to listen to me, kid?"

Jamie hesitated, then realized that the ground under his feet was solid and real; his muscles, though exhausted, were whole. He'd done the job and done it well. He chanced a smile - his first real one in a while - and felt the unnatural coolness on his skin begin to thaw under the relentless August sun.

It felt a little bit like healing.

)()()()()()()()()()(

Sunday dinner that week was a Henry Reagan special, consisting of roast chicken with chanterelles and peas, herb-roasted potatoes and onions, butterflake rolls, creamed spinach, corn on the cob and milk chocolate pudding for dessert. Frank's stomach had been rumbling since church from the smells Henry and Linda had wafting out of the kitchen, but he'd behaved himself and played a hard-hitting game of Monopoly with Danny and the boys until it was ready. Dinner itself had been a relaxed affair this week, with the biggest consternation coming over Danny sharing a few too many details about a body that had been recovered the day before from a storm drain under Flushing Avenue, west of the BQE.

Standing at the kitchen sink afterwards, Frank ran silverware and glasses under the rush of warm water, smiling to himself. Nicky was next to him, a dishrag in her hands, on drying duty for the week. "What's so funny, Grandpa?"

He shook his head as the sounds of the house behind him filtered in - Henry, laughing as he helped Erin clear the table; Linda, quieting the boys as they got louder and louder around a video game in the living room. "Nothing, sweetheart," he replied. "It's just nice to have everyone here."

She smiled herself at that, then nodded a greeting to her aunt as Linda stepped up beside Frank, already pulling on her dishwashing gloves. "Why don't you let me take over here, huh?" she asked, nudging him gently in the side.

"I've got it," he replied, slightly puzzled by her insistence. "If you cooked, the least I can do is bat clean-up."

Linda raised up on her toes to drop a light kiss on his cheek, then jerked her head towards the doorway behind them. "Go check in on those two boys of yours," she said.

He held her knowing gaze for a moment, then nodded, stepping away from the sink to let her slide in. Nicky handed over a dry dish towel, and Frank accepted it gratefully, his mind already turning back to the dinner table discussion to analyze anything he might have missed. Danny had been his usual self at dinner, eating and sharing war stories with gusto, and Jamie had been subdued but not unduly so. In fact, his youngest had been more forthcoming than he'd been in months, and had eaten more, too.

But now that he thought about it, Frank had seen him absently rubbing at a telltale spot under his collarbone more than once. The spot that might have killed him if not for his vest.

Frank felt a cold chill at that, the shudder zipping up his spine.

Henry and Erin were still at work in the dining room, and the living room was filled with the larger-than-life presence of his exuberant grandsons. He didn't see Jamie and Danny at all, but when he stepped into the foyer he caught their muted voices and moved to the bottom of the steps, peering up. Jamie was sitting near the top, facing the wall, his back braced against the spindles of the wooden banister. Danny was sprawled out a few steps below him, wine glass from dinner still in his hand. "...telling you, kid, it was the last place those cops looked but it made perfect sense afterwards. Talk about hiding a body in plain sight."

"This is morbid, Danny." Jamie's voice was amused and easy, not strained, and Frank felt something tight inside his gut relax. "Let's talk about the Jets."

"What's wrong with loving my work?" Danny grinned cheekily at his younger brother, then caught Frank from the corner of his eye. "Dad, hey. C'mon up here."

"We have dozens of perfectly good chairs in this house," Frank pointed out dryly, but climbed a few steps anyway, easing himself down. His joints and bones didn't appreciate these sorts of accommodations like they used to, but he wouldn't miss mended fences between his oldest and youngest for anything.

Jamie reached over to the step just above him and lifted up his own wine glass. "You want something to drink, Dad?"

"No, I'm fine, son." He let his critical gaze rest upon Jamie. His son looked better, he had to admit. He didn't seem as pale, and the bags of exhaustion and worry beneath his eyes had begun to lift. Frank hated to admit it, but he hadn't done the best job of checking in on his son in the aftermath of Vinny Cruz's death. It hadn't been his finest moment as a parent, but sometimes the job had to come first - for him and for his son alike. "What happened to your hand?"

Jamie glanced down at the angry scratch across the back of his right hand. "Hazard of the job."

"Six-year-old attack you with play scissors?" Danny's eyes sparkled at Jamie over the rim of his glass.

Jamie smirked back. "A perp rabbited straight into a barbed wire fence. Did my job for me."

Danny laughed out loud. "I love it when that happens."

"So how are you doing, Jamie?" Frank asked. "Things going okay with Renzulli?"

Jamie nodded. "I'm getting a new partner in a few weeks. Back to normal, you know?" He smiled. It didn't quite reach his eyes, but his gaze was steady when it met Frank's. "I'm all right."

Frank put on his patented Dad Stare, which had been second only to Mary's evil eye when it came to getting the truth out of his kids. "And if I told you I'm not looking for the politically correct answer?"

Jamie didn't flinch under Frank's level gaze. His youngest son might not look a damn thing like him, but at moments like this, there was no doubting he was Frank Reagan's son. "I'm not great," he admitted. "But... I'm all right. Really. I'm getting through." He looked at Danny again. "One day at a time."

Danny grinned. "That's my boy."

And the weight of guilt Frank had felt over not being there for his son lifted, diffused, dissipated like a sigh on the wind. Where he failed, his oldest son had stepped in. Thank God for family. "Good," Frank said aloud. "Good. How's the shoulder?"

"Getting better. A little stiff still in the mornings, but that's starting to pass."

"Eh, you'll be fine," Danny said dismissively. "A graze like that has gotta be cake compared to the Wool Sock Slip."

Jamie put a hand over his eyes as Frank frowned, glancing back and forth between them. "The what?"

"Don't you remember, Dad? When this twerp was seven or eight-"

"I was six."

"-whatever, he used to come barreling down these stairs at a hundred miles an hour wearing these wool socks, and every time his feet would go right out from under him and he'd end up either wedged under the banister or flat on his face down there in the foyer." Danny shook his head fondly. "And mom would go nuts but he never broke anything. Like he was made out of bubble wrap or something."

Frank scowled as Danny took another sip of wine. "That doesn't sound very funny."

"Well, when you're sixteen and your kid brother just took a header for, like, the fifth time that week, all you can do is laugh." He gave Jamie a playful nudge, then looked over at Frank. "How do you not remember that?"

"The ER visits are starting to come back to me," he sighed.

"We should've have left up the baby gates until you were, like, ten at least," Danny chuckled.

"Joe used to say that, too." Jamie's reflective gaze turned to the empty top step. "He always used to hang out on these steps with us when we were kids. You remember?"

"Sort of." Danny swirled the wine in his glass. "That was more of a thing for him and you, though. I was out of the house for most of that."

Joe was never far from Frank's thoughts on any occasion, but hearing Jamie mention his name sparked a particular memory that made him pause. "Son..." Frank began. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you."

Danny and Jamie both turned to him, but Jamie was the one to speak. "What's that?"

Frank looked at Danny's open, curious expression before putting his gaze firmly on Jamie. "Doctor Bainton... the one who took care of you at Bellevue? He's been the chief of emergency medicine there for years. He was the same doctor who worked on Joe."

Jamie's face stayed carefully blank. "He was?"

Frank nodded.

"I thought he looked familiar," Danny muttered, then drank deeply from his glass.

Jamie leaned his head back, cradling in between the banisters. "Why did you tell me that?"

"I thought you should know," Frank said. "I've... it's been on my mind. Quite a bit, actually. The way fate takes a hand. How life can change so quickly." He smiled, ignoring a sudden hint of dampness at the back of his eyes, and reached out to rest one hand on Danny's shoulder, the other on Jamie's ankle. "How important it is to savor moments like this."

"I wish I had been there the night Joe died," Jamie said suddenly. "I've always wished I could've been there."

"I'm glad you weren't," Frank said. "It was... that night... it was the worst night of my life."

Danny twisted his mouth. "And the night you got shot, little brother, wasn't too far behind."

"I was okay, though." Jamie's own gaze settled into his wine glass. "Big difference."

"The fear doesn't change," Danny said softly.

Frank nodded. "And the night Joe died, Jamie... I was so glad, in that moment, that you and your sister were away from this life. That you would never be subject to the things that your grandpa and Danny and I were. That you were safe." He shrugged a little. "That's what made it so hard for me when you changed careers. I've always known you would be successful at whatever you set your mind to, Jamie, but selfishly, I never wanted this for you."

Danny silently passed Frank his wine glass, and Frank accepted it without comment, taking a deep drink himself.

Jamie winced. "I'm sorry."

Frank smiled, then shrugged, passing the glass back to his oldest son. "I could no more keep you from this than I could keep Danny from the Marines. Your mom and I, we raised you. We taught you right from wrong - we did our best. Then we had to let you go."

"Mom never did," Jamie pointed out.

"Your mom did have a little trouble with that, I admit. But she was so proud of you. Of you both. I know she always will be."

"Hey, if there was one Reagan mom was proud of, it was Joe," Danny sighed. "I was a troublemaker, Erin was prissy, and Jamie here whined all the time. Joe never did a thing wrong."

"Joe could read your mother better than anyone under this roof," Frank replied, shaking his head. "He did plenty; he was just a master at making sure he stayed on your mom's good side. Probably could've taught me a thing or two about it."

Jamie's eyes wandered back to the top of the stairs, turning thoughtful. "Joe had a way of making things right."

"Maybe he still does," Danny mused, then shrugged and leaned forward to give Jamie's knee a friendly slap. "So you ready to rejoin the family, kid? We're probably already in the doghouse for skipping cleanup."

Jamie ignored him, his eyes still on the top steps. "He was never afraid of anything, was he?"

Danny looked puzzled. "What do you mean? Joe? Of course he was. Dad here could scare the living daylights out of him just by looking at his sideways."

"No, I mean... Joe was always so confident in the job. You too, Danny, and Dad..." Jamie twisted his hands in his lap, meeting no one's eyes. "How do you hold onto that kind of confidence?"

Danny frowned. "Kid, I do the job same as you. One day at a time, one problem at a time. If I'm confident, it's only because I've been well trained and I've got the Reagan gut, same as you. And I've got the experience behind me. But hell, this job's always gonna scare me a little. You'd have to be a nutjob if it didn't."

Jamie frowned. "I've never seen you scared."

Danny glared back at him. "Then you haven't been paying attention."

"There's not a cop alive who doesn't second-guess himself after things go bad, Jamie," Frank said. "We've all done it, your brother and me included."

"You need to watch The Wizard of Oz again next time you're over at my place," Danny said with a grin. "Make it an uncle night with the boys. 'Cause you've obviously forgotten everything that cowardly lion was trying to teach."

Jamie grinned, despite himself. "And that is?"

"Courage doesn't mean you're not scared. Courage is when you're scared, and you just plow right over it. Everybody's afraid. You just have to conquer it and do the job, that's all." He drained the last of the wine, then grinned. "That's what Dad does. Joe did it. I do it. And you do, too."

"'The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid,'" Frank said aloud. "George R.R. Martin."

"'What makes a king out of a slave?'" Danny asked, lifting his glass into the air. "'Courage. What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage.'"

"Okay, now we're quoting the Cowardly Lion," Jamie sighed, grinning despite himself.

"Wait until you have kids, Harvard."

And Frank leaned back, ignoring the ache in his knees and the unforgiving wooden stair beneath him. These boys, Jamie and Danny. His bones and his blood. Erin and Nicky, Henry and Linda, Jack and Sean. The air in his lungs. His family.

The beats of his heart.

Author's Note, pt. 2: Once again, everyone, I do apologize for my unexpected absence. I still have some ancient reviews and PMs to which I never responded, and I'll try to make that right this week. I'm also looking forward to your feedback on this concluding chapter. This story almost wrote itself after the season finale, and it's been wonderful exploring the many angles of Jamie's shooting and Vinny's death that the series did not cover. I'm very glad to have wrapped it in time for the season four premiere, too! Now, if anyone is saddened that this story has come to an end, never fear - I've seen the previews for "Unwritten Rules" and if they do what I think they might do, I will absolutely write a sequel and call it "Heart-Stopper." Mark my words. :) Plenty more to come, as well. Thanks again for your support!