Archive of Our Own

At this point in time, Blair’s brand-new daughter is more an amalgamation of blankets than a person. Annika remembers this stage: the euphoria, the terror, the exhaustion. She won’t mention to Blair that most of that never really goes away. It’s probably pretty obvious; Blair’s been witness to many of Annika’s recent parenting struggles, after all.

Finally, reluctantly, Annika hands the warm little bundle that is Isla Ferguson back to her mum, allowing herself one final tap on that scrunched button nose.

“She’s gorgeous,” she tells Blair, meaning it, “at this age, Morgan was a lot more blotchy.”

“Really?” asks Michael with interest.

Relieved of tiny human, Annika picks up her mug of tea once more. “Yeah,” she says, “I’ll see if I can dig out some photos for you.”

Michael takes a swig of his own tea. “Cheers,” he says, “I’d like that.”

Blair is fussing with Isla’s shock of dark hair, but Harper darts a glance between the two of them, dubious.

“Are we all meant to be this invested in each other’s kids?” she asks carefully, like she’s not entirely unwilling but is sceptical.

“Oh, no, don’t worry,” Annika reassures her, “Michael is Morgan’s dad.”

Blair nearly drops her baby. Harper looks like she’s debating immediately moving back to Edinburgh.

“You’re not getting better at delivering that information,” Michael says conversationally, leaning over to pluck Isla out of her mother’s slackened arms. “Also, thanks for discussing with me if we were telling the team.” He settles Isla easily into the crook of his elbow.

“Oh God,” Annika says, a thought arriving, “are we going to have to tell Oban? Is there going to be paperwork of some kind?”

Blair snaps into action, grabbing her phone. Harper has a little crinkle forming between her eyebrows.

“I feel like this explains a lot about… everything,” she says, like she’s reviewing her whole time on the team and a lot of tumblers have suddenly clicked into place.

Annika can hear the repeated buzzing of Blair’s phone, like she’s getting a string of texts, one after the other until it’s just one long notification.

“Tyrone says he always suspected,” she announces, “which is bollocks, he just wants to sound cool about it.”

“Shouldn’t Tyrone be working?” Annika wonders. As usual, things seem to have rapidly got away from her.

“He’s using way too many capital letters for someone claiming not to be surprised,” Blair decides.

Michael is placidly rocking Isla, whispering soft nonsense down at her. For the briefest of moments, something in Annika clenches – a vision perhaps, a memory of something that never happened. She looks away, throat full of ghosts, and finds that Harper is also watching Michael, expression slipping into something suspicious at how he’s cradling the baby.

“You do have to let Michael impregnate you, it’s a team-building exercise,” Annika tells her, unable to resist.

The startled silence stretches until Blair breaks it, falling back into the sofa with the strength of her laughter.

“That sense of humour is going to get us all hauled into HR,” Michael says, voice soft so as not to startle Isla.

“Too soon?” Annika guesses.

“Ask me again in another sixteen years,” Michael replies.

Well. He says that now.

-

At home, Morgan is helping Jake unpack boxes of books and asking him increasingly ridiculous questions about Freud only to receive increasingly ridiculous answers. There’s giggling and warmth and domesticity and it’s with reluctance that Annika leaves them to it, mumbles something about a check-in with Oban that’s solely for Morgan’s benefit because Jake knows where she’s going, has talked her off this particular ledge several times already.

Astrid sits at a corner table in the generic wine bar, fiddling absently with the tealight holder. Her blouse is neat, and Michael probably made dinner for them all before she headed out. Annika vaguely remembers eating half a Boots meal deal wrap somewhere in the afternoon. Her nail beds are full of salt and her hair smells of petrol. She hopes Morgan and Jake manage to scrape together something to eat at some point – surely they will, Jake’s a real adult in a way that Annika has never quite managed. In the meantime, she has other adult responsibilities to attempt to take on.

They settle on white, simultaneously tell the waiter to leave the bottle and exchange sheepish grins.

“I’m not attempting to, uh, steal Michael,” Annika thinks she should get straight first. “I’m not trying for some kind of… time share or anything.”

Astrid arches an eyebrow. “And here was me about to suggest we all set up a commune,” she says drily. “You’re running behind, I’ve had three of Mike’s kids. It’s your turn next.”

Annika laughs through the kickdrum lurch of panic in her chest, takes a swig of Chardonnay bigger than she initially intended. “Sure,” she says, trying to hold back a cough, “I’ll get right on that.”

The tealight is reflected in Astrid’s eyes as she props her chin on her hand and looks at her for a moment. Her expression is hard to read, but not hostile.

“If I thought you were after my husband we wouldn’t be here,” she points out. “This is…” Her confidence crumples a little, and she twists her mouth. “I don’t know what this is. I suppose we’ll find out.”

It’s good, really, that Astrid is nothing like Annika. In an alternate timeline, where Annika was still in the boot of her car when it blew and someone put two and two and maybe a DNA test together, Morgan would probably thrive, moved into the house with the McAndrews clan. Routine and stability and organisation and support. It’s not something that Annika has thought about, except for a few times in the middle of the night, the memory of panic pressing against her eyelids, leaning toward maudlin. She could talk to Jake about it, maybe, or an actual therapist the department offers automatically if you almost die in the line of duty, but the fact is she knows that she won’t. Of course she won’t.

The wicked stepmother trope can be traced back across time and civilisations to the myths of Ancient Greece, to the Old Testament; by the time the Brothers Grimm were writing their tales they were treading a well-worn path. Life expectancy was much lower in the past, and if childbirth didn’t get you on the first or second or third go, well, there was always next time. Many children were raised by stepmothers when their fathers remarried, and at a time when inheritances were complicated and could make or break someone’s entire life, the new wife would naturally want her children to prosper.

Annika’s not entirely sure what line of thought she’s tracing here, but in any case she can’t see Astrid forcing Morgan into years of servitude: Morgan would have to learn to cook something other than eggs, for one thing.

“I didn’t come back here to do this,” Annika says, and it’s much too vague, missing the specifics. She’s expecting confusion, but Astrid seems to get it.

“I guessed, since it took you nearly a year to get there,” she replies. “You didn’t exactly stride in ready to drop your bombshell.”

“I don’t think I was going to tell him at all,” Annika tells her, realising she’s reached the bottom of her wineglass all of a sudden, reaching for the bottle to refresh both of them.

Astrid takes a sip of her wine, opens her mouth, then takes another gulp before she tries again. “I think that would have been a shame,” she says quietly. “For Michael, and for Morgan. And for you. And for me.”

Annika looks down into her wine because it’s easier than trying to make any sort of eye contact. “That’s very understanding of you,” she mumbles.

Astrid lets out a sharp bark of laugher. “I didn’t want to be,” she says. “But I like Morgan a lot. I like you too, even though I don’t think you want me to.”

If Michael hadn’t snapped her up, Annika finds herself thinking she’d rather like to marry Astrid; what a woman.

“It’s not about dislike,” Annika tries to clarify, “it’s still about Morgan. If you’d accept her. No… poisoned apples.”

“You know,” Astrid says, tipping the last of the bottle between their glasses, “in some of the original versions of Snow White, it’s her actual mother who gets jealous and tries to kill her.”

Her lips curl a little at the corners; Michael’s been telling tales out of school, Annika thinks absently, but then recalls that of course he would. He has a marriage where they talk about things.

“Yeah,” Annika says, “I know.”

Astrid taps the nails of her left hand on the table and takes a quick breath before saying: “you know a version of Michael I’ll never know, you have a past and a present and I want to be jealous. I wondered if I should be, when you first came back. But I’m not. I want… I want whatever the hell this is to work.”

Ah. That’s why they’re here: that’s what Astrid ultimately wanted to say when she called Annika and asked if they could meet. It’s a great sentiment: considered, mature, understanding, amenable.

Naturally, Annika can’t empathise.

“I… I appreciate that,” she manages, inadequate, a beat too late. But she means it.

“God,” Astrid says, leaning back in her chair, “I shouldn’t have suggested we meet here to discuss this, I should have picked somewhere that serves Jägerbombs.”

Jake repeatedly emphasised to Annika that this was important and she should go and see Astrid and talk it all over even though it was the absolute last thing that she actually wanted to do. You don’t have to stay for long, he pointed out, more than once.

And yet. And yet. “I mean,” she says easily, “you know, the night’s still young.”

-

Michael’s expression when he pulls up outside the chippie is a picture.

“Well,” he says, “this is a blast from the past.”

Annika isn’t sure which of them he’s talking to, and also isn’t sure that it matters.

She opens her mouth, maybe to reminisce about a night or two from times long dead, but what actually comes out is something dangerously close to a giggle. She grabs another chip from the paper cone she and Astrid are sharing, fingertips numb and vinegary, and eats it before she can do anything else stupid.

Michael’s eyebrows crawl to his hairline. “I see,” he says, and turns his attention to Astrid, slumped warm against Annika’s side. “I had to get her next door over to keep an ear out for the girls,” he says, “so you can mop that one up tomorrow.”

Apparently Annika isn’t the only one affected with a case of the giggles, judging by the ones that burst out of Astrid. This sets her off again and they all but fall into one another, tipping into something worryingly close to cackling.

“Jesus Christ,” Michael murmurs to himself, but he comes over to lever Astrid off the bench someone thoughtfully put outside the chip shop for moments like this, one assumes, and leads her over to the car. She stumbles away from him and crawls into the back seat, sprawling out.

Annika eats three more chips and tries to work out if a cab driver is going to pick her up without making grumbling noises about her vomiting in his car, but then Michael is standing in front of her, hand held out. She considers it a moment, and then offers him the cone of chips.

“They’re not coming in the car,” Michael tells her firmly.

“Am I coming in the car?” Annika asks.

Michael sighs, deep and gusty, a sigh he learned at some point in the sixteen years they didn’t know each other.

“You are,” he confirms, “even if I’m pretty sure that this is all your fault.”

“The Jägerbombs were entirely your wife’s idea,” Annika tells him, as Michael relieves her of the chips and puts them in the bin. She already misses them.

Michael murmurs a couple of things to himself that she doesn’t catch, but he keeps his hand between Annika’s shoulder blades as he guides her to the car anyway. Astrid is taking up the entire back seat, apparently already fast asleep, so she sits in the front. Fumbles seven times with the seatbelt before she gets it done up, and Michael sits in the driver’s seat and lets her do it, doesn’t reach over to try and help.

“She’s nice,” Annika says at some point during the drive, the roads dark and quiet, Michael’s face cut into stripes by streetlights. She remembers this, too. “Doesn’t take any shit. Knows how to hold her drink.”

“That’s why I married her,” Michael agrees gravely, a thread of wariness in his tone. He’s known her for too long, after all.

“She’s good for you,” Annika tells him, but that isn’t what she means. “She’s right for you. Her and the girls. They’re right for you.”

Michael’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, his mouth thins into a line. “I wouldn’t give them up for anything,” he says quietly, “but you know my feelings about the choice you made about what was right for me and we are not rehashing it when you’re drunk.”

Robert Frost wrote The Road Not Taken in 1915, reflecting on the choices that we all make in life; the easy ones, the hard ones, the ones that come back to bite you later. There were two simple choices there and Annika chose neither of them, struck out alone until, months later, she wasn’t alone anymore. It was eight years later that Frost wrote Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening, reflecting at the end: and miles to go before I sleep. Some roads twist and turn more than others.

“You’d have done the right thing,” Annika says at last. “But it wouldn’t really have been the right thing for any of us.”

Michael stops at a red light, even though they’re the only ones on the road, the two of them and Astrid’s even sleeping breathing in the back.

“I fucking loved you,” he says, simple and hard and worse than if he’d shouted it.

Oh, Michael, a decade and a half stripped off him: the lines of his face softer, the lines of his personality harder, a tiny gold hoop his brother had pierced for him still cuffing one earlobe, every inch of him alive with that rangy greyhound energy that doesn’t know what to do with itself, everything he did burning like a struck match. Time and age and the right kind of love have mellowed him, sanded those sharp edges, made a man of him and a good one at that. Annika is not the person who would have brought that out of him: that’s never been what she does.

The people that they were back then would have raised a different Morgan to the one that Annika knows: she’s tried to imagine her, these past weeks, but she can’t. Morgan is Morgan, ever-changing, ever-permanent, Annika’s North star and lodestone and anchor. The idea of her being someone else is unthinkable.

“It wasn’t what we needed,” she stumbles out at last, and Michael scoffs, not disagreeing, not agreeing either. “I’m not saying I didn’t love you,” she adds, throwing up her hands.

It’s several long minutes of silence before Michael says: “You never did, you know. Say it, I mean.”

Annika mouths fuck out the window where he can’t see. The air in the car feels like a stretched rubber band, ready to ping back and hurt when it does. That’s the general effect she has on people.

Michael eventually huffs something that isn’t a laugh, but it softens the tension a little. “Your bloody timing, Annika, honestly.”

She rubs a hand over her face, yawns until her jaw cracks, the taste of Jägermeister still sticking relentlessly to her teeth. He’ll drop her off at home in a minute but still: miles to go before she sleeps.

“I mean, I probably won’t remember this in the morning,” she offers, an olive branch.

She knows that she will, though. They both will.

-

Whatever the slightly weird relationship between Blair and Morgan actually is – Annika knows she doesn’t need to hold an intervention and everything after that is fine – it seems to have finally recovered from the spectre of Erin. Part of Annika would still love to drive over and give Erin a very thorough shake and a breakdown of Dante’s different circles of Hell and which one is specifically reserved for people who break up with other people via text message; she knows better than to do it, even though Michael wryly suggested something similar when it happened, and she’s pretty sure Jake would sign off on the whole thing, actually.

Anyway, Morgan has spent the afternoon over at Blair’s and is swiping through what seem to be dozens of photos of herself and Isla, burbling about how cute she is. Jake, who has apparently already had this entire presentation, hands Annika a glass of the mediocre Malbec they have on the go at the moment, and settles himself on the sofa with an indulgent smile. It’s not a hardship to look at the pictures, anyway; Morgan’s face is alight and Isla continues to be adorable, big-eyed and chubby-cheeked.

“She sneezed and it was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen, oh my God,” Morgan is saying.

Annika takes a moment to leap into the conversation. “This had better not be the start of a campaign to get a baby sibling,” she warns. In her peripheral vision, she watches Jake choke, heroically manage not to spray the living room with cut-price red wine.

“Oh, ew, mum,” Morgan complains. “Don’t be gross, what is wrong with you.” She seems to belatedly remember they’re not alone. “Erm, no offence, Jake.”

Jake is still looking a tad poleaxed, but amusement is still curling his mouth; it’s nice that he’s still finding the Strandhed women entertaining even in such close regular proximity. Baffling, but nice.

“None taken, Morgan,” he says mildly.

“Also,” Annika adds, “you do already have three little siblings. Well, half-siblings. Even if they’re too big for cute sneezing.”

They haven’t told the girls yet: Annika is leaving that in Michael and Astrid’s hands. It doesn’t seem immediately pressing, although Morgan has asked the inevitable do I still get paid for babysitting if it turns out we’re related?

Morgan scoffs, dismissive, and picks her phone up again. She’s probably texting Blair about what a great mother she is in comparison to Annika, but that’s okay: newborns are knackering but they can’t answer back yet. Once they start doing that, oh, it’s a whole new ballgame.

“I had a really good speech about safe sex worked out,” Annika remarks, apropos of a train of thought leaping the tracks, as she takes a sip of wine. “A completely solid one about how even if you think you’re doing all the right things, accidents can happen.”

“But then I was gay,” Morgan says.

“But then you were gay,” Annika agrees. “Only bad bit of you coming out to me, what was I meant to do with my speech?”

Jake is watching the two of them like they’re his new favourite TV show.

“If you’re going to write a case study about us, I want a cut,” Morgan tells him cheerfully.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Jake says, “and anyway, there’s really no money in academic publishing.”

“Is that why you had to move in?” Morgan asks, grinning wider, “because you’re a starving artist?”

“Sure,” Jake shrugs, “and also I love your mum.”

Morgan rolls her eyes, but there’s a fondness there; Annika knows, without them ever having to discuss it, that Morgan has crossed some kind of worry off an internal list. Make sure mum isn’t going to become some sort of crazed spinster claiming that she’s married to the sea: tick. All of this is new for them, but it’s not a bad kind of new.

“Maybe I’ll give the speech to Michael for his girls,” Annika muses. “Statistically, one of them will probably be into boys.”

One missed Pill, one split condom; Morgan is a miracle and a blessing and the result of a series of coincidental accidents. These things happen, even when you think you’re too much of an adult for them to happen to you. With hindsight, maybe Annika should have given the speech to Blair.

“At least you got me out of it,” Morgan says, and she’s grinning much too widely now. “I mean, Michael could have just given you gonorrhoea.”

Jake swallows his wine down the wrong way and Annika leans over to bang him on the back; sooner or later, the kinds of conversations Annika and Morgan have will become second nature to him. Maybe he’ll even join in. For now, he’s settling in, learning where he fits, which conversational beats belong to him. It’s been Annika and Morgan for so long, even when they were building up their emotional walls; all of a sudden, there are all these people they need to learn to fit. Building themselves a slightly different family via Tetris.

“I’m telling Michael you said that,” Annika remarks, when Jake is breathing normally again and Morgan has mostly stopped laughing. “I’ll pick my moment, he’ll love it.”

“That poor man,” Jake murmurs; really, he doesn’t know the half of it.

-

When Michael first came over to talk to Morgan, after she’d put two and two together and wasn’t being kidnapped, Annika made lots of noise about going outside and slammed doors and snuck back in again to eavesdrop. She could be apologetic about it, but they both knew her and if they hadn’t guessed she was listening in, then they should have done.

“Do I… do I call you ‘dad’ now?” Morgan asked, voice wavering. She sounded so young, younger than she had for years.

“You call me what you want, sweetheart,” Michael said gently. “This is new to both of us, and I know that ‘dad’ has to be earned.”

Morgan made a soft noise that might have been a sniffle. “I sort of thought that mum would tell me who my dad was and I’d never find him. He’d be like, an offshore oil guy or some sort of hermit in the mountains in Norway and there’d be like, one crappy photo of him on a Facebook page he doesn’t use and that would be that. He’d be a name and an implausible job and mum would have a vague story involving, like, Aqua Vitae and a folk tale and that would be plenty because you never want to think about your parents having sex, you know?”

“And you got me instead,” Michael said neutrally.

“I got you,” Morgan agrees. “And I… I know you, and your family, and you’ve given me lifts and helped me with my homework when I was in the office and loaned me a quid for the vending machine.”

“And I didn’t know I was your father for pretty much any of that,” Michael replied evenly. “So this is new for both of us. We can work it out as we go along.” He sighed, and Annika could hear how he was trying to hold himself together for this conversation. “You’re in charge here, Morgan. I’d like to be in your life, but you can choose what that looks like. I mean, I’d be gutted if after tonight you said you never wanted to see me again, but if that’s what you want, I’ll do it.”

“I don’t want that,” Morgan said quickly. “I don’t… I guess I thought if I found out about my dad and I did meet him then I’d suddenly just have… a dad.”

“I know,” Michael said. “And you do, and we’ll work out what all of this looks like for you together. But we can’t change the past. I still won’t have put plasters on your knees or stuck your macaroni artwork on my fridge or cheered you on on your sports days.”

Morgan made a muffled noise. “I didn’t really go to sports days, mum usually wrote me a sick note.”

“That does not surprise me,” Michael said, and Annika grimaced at thin air, resisted the urge to justify herself to no one in the lingering silence that she couldn’t interpret without seeing their body language.

“Do you wish I was a boy?” Morgan blurted, and it made Annika flinch, clap a hasty hand over her mouth just in case she’d made some kind of sound.

“‘Course not, why’d you say that?” Michael asked, sounding equally nonplussed.

“Well, you’ve already got daughters,” Morgan said miserably, still sounding so small, so lost.

“Yeah,” Michael said, “so I’m really glad you are one. What the hell would I know about teenage boys?”

Morgan laughed a little wet laugh. “I mean, I’m assuming you were one.”

“I was, and I was dreadful,” Michael told her. “And my brother was even worse.”

“I’ve got an uncle?” Morgan asked, latching onto the important part of that statement.

Annika pre-emptively winced, heard it mirrored in Michael’s voice as he said: “well, he’s currently in prison for being a getaway driver for his idiot friend, so I wouldn’t get too excited about it.”

“Oh,” Morgan said. “Right. I thought your family looked so much less complicated than mine.”

“Smoke and mirrors,” Michael responded with a thread of humour in it.

Annika used that moment to actually sneak outside where she should have been all along, using the trick to close the door with a barely noticeable sound that she worked out for coming in long after Morgan’s bedtime. It was a cool evening, wind whipping off the water, and Annika walked onto the jetty to look into the water, the waves rocking Mimir.

She allowed herself to think about it for maybe the third time since she’d come back to Glasgow and seen the DS Michael McAndrews listed as one of the members of her new team. She’d been careful about the memories, keeping them buried so no one could see them behind her eyes, so no one could read more than they were supposed to into them. So she wouldn’t look at Michael and not see her colleague, her old friend becoming a new friend, Morgan’s father even if he didn’t know it; so she wouldn’t look at him and see an old flame she never quite blew out.

He had the longest eyelashes, Michael, and big hands that always seemed to be warm even in the middle of winter. He had this perpetual curl to his mouth that she liked to trace with her fingertips before she kissed it away, a scar on the underside of his chin that he once told her was from his dad, the ability to drink everyone but her under the table. They used to drink in this shitty old bar that had a working jukebox, would bicker over the classics and who’d picked the music last time and if it was a cliché that Michael liked The Proclaimers as much as he did; they drove the others in training mad with how they finished each other’s sentences long before they started sleeping together.

Michael wore his hair long and it tangled around her fingers when she clenched a fist in it; he left her stubble-burned and windswept, a natural disaster she dragged close nevertheless. They argued because it didn’t matter, because neither of them had skin in the game, because it was fun to make each other furious and reap the benefits later. Maybe he was a gentleman, with his fondness for diving between her legs, but he always did like to get the last word; sometimes Annika suspected he was murmuring rebuttals into the wet heat of her but by that point she’d usually devolved into swearing in Norwegian and didn’t care very much which of them was winning.

Nowadays, the arguments mattered too much; she suspected the attraction was still there for both of them, buried underneath layers and layers of far more important things. They could probably still fuck and it would be good, but it wouldn’t be worth all of the consequences. Maybe if Annika had let them end it properly it would have been different, but they never had the opportunity to fall out of love or lust or whatever they were classifying the whole thing as. She wasn’t exactly carrying a torch but the memories… they were safer buried, examined only under extremely careful circumstances.

Eventually, Michael came out to join her, the wind in his curls.

“Morgan alright?” she asked, and he nodded, hands in the pockets of his coat. After a second, she added: “You alright?”

“I’ll get there.” Michael leaned next to her, gaze on the waves. “Becoming a new parent is terrifying, you know?”

This isn’t Michael’s first rodeo by a long shot and it’s not like Morgan is a baby; still, Annika knew what he meant and didn’t call him out on the specifics.

“At least you can’t drop her,” Annika offered.

Michael turned to look at her. “Annika Strandhed, did you drop our daughter?”

She offered him a smile that was mostly a grimace. “Not, you know, recently.”

He tutted, shook his head, fell quiet. After a while, he said: “I know my kids so well, you know? Their personalities, their little quirks, their fears and their favourites, what they want from me and what they need from me. I never thought I’d have a kid where I don’t know those things, where they aren’t instinctively a part of me.”

There was no blame in his tone, but Annika took it anyway. “She hates pears as much as you do,” she offered. “When she’s really angry, she gets this frown between her eyebrows exactly like you do. I sang her all these beautiful Norwegian lullabies handed down the generations and some nights she’d only bloody sleep if I sang her Sunshine on Leith.”

Michael took the peace offering in the form it was meant. “I’ve heard you sing Sunshine on Leith,” he said. “I don’t think it would get me to sleep.”

“Yes, alright,” Annika muttered, turning back towards her home, all the lights blazing, Jake somewhere out in the growing darkness on his way. “That’s our daughter: does what she likes.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” Michael replied, and she didn’t have to look at him to see his smile.

-

Tyrone still texts her for advice from time to time: take that, leadership course she didn’t attend! He absolutely does not take her up on her reading list recommendations and replied with God forbid when she offered to send him a link to the website she uses to import her liquorice from when she’s not in the mood to ask her parents for care packages. She’s had a couple of snarky messages along the lines of so, I shouldn’t have team members that I slept with a decade ago? but she probably deserves that. Blair told her that Tyrone got in touch with all his exes recently, politely reaching out, just… double-checking. Well. It’s not like Annika hasn’t been a cautionary tale before.

With Tyrone gone and Blair still on maternity leave, the office feels empty a lot of the time. It’s just her and Michael and Harper rattling around most days, sipping tea and catching up on paperwork when there are no bodies being pulled out of the harbour. It does sometimes feel like Harper is watching the two of them very carefully; it’s not like Annika can blame her.

“We’re not gonna fuck on a desk, Harper,” Michael says easily one afternoon, no one dead just yet. Annika is rereading Hamsun’s Hunger on the off-chance it might turn out to be relevant to their next case: you never know. She’s had the inevitable psychological novel/dating a psychologist conversation already and no, she can contain multitudes, actually.

“Are we not?” she asks, slipping a pink Post-It between the pages.

“Not with my knees these days,” Michael says easily. “How’re yours?”

Annika considers, tips her hand in the universal sign for so-so. “My back might play up a bit, though.”

“Ah, well, that’s a shame.” Michael takes a deep drink from his tea. “Guess we’ll have to think of something else to do.”

“I do keep suggesting a book club,” Annika reminds him.

“No,” Michael says, “absolutely not. Not if you’re picking the books.”

“Of course I’m picking the books,” Annika replies. “Why would we have a book club if I wasn’t picking the books?” She turns her attention to Harper, who is still watching the two of them with a deliberately neutral expression. “You’d join a book club where I picked the books, wouldn’t you?”

“Tyrone told me not to,” Harper says, sounding apologetic. “Also, I don’t read Norwegian.” She nods toward the book Annika is still holding; of course she’s reading Hamsun in the original.

“Sure, but I’d give you the translation,” Annika tells her, looks up in time to see Michael making a quick slashing motion across his throat.

“We could all just read some Ian Rankin and call it a day,” he says.

“Well, we’re obviously not doing that,” Annika scoffs.

Michael sucks his teeth. “I guess we’re back to fucking on a desk after all,” he says. “Astrid’s got this pretty good ibuprofen gel she uses sometimes after she’s gone for a run, I’ll ask her for it.”

“Okay!” Harper interrupts, “I get it! You’re making fun of me!”

“Not only you,” Michael offers, tone softening a little. “There’s a lot to unpack here, actually, we should get Annika’s boyfriend in.”

“Have you not had colleagues with romantic and/or sexual pasts before?” Annika asks Harper.

“I had colleagues who were married who weren’t like you two,” Harper all but snaps.

“Oh, that’s not a sex thing,” Michael shrugs. “That’s just us, I think.” He swivels his chair toward Annika, snaps his fingers in thought. “What was it Adie used to say?”

“‘One foot in each other’s brains’,” Annika quotes.

It’s strange, to reminisce like this. She was much more careful when she first came back here, working out the dynamic that she and Michael had these days, fifteen years and change later. Terrified that if she opened that door too wide he’d do some very quick maths and work out the things she wasn’t ready to tell him. Now he knows, and the important people know, and Michael has his wonderful wife and Annika has her wonderful Jake, and somehow it’s… okay to do this.

It's in fact probably not okay, actually, they should nip some of it in the bud before the wrong person overhears and HR do have to get involved, that’s the last thing this entire situation needs.

Harper sighs, and maybe they could be a little easier on her. Annika is well aware that she and Michael have never been entirely comfortable to be around, not then and not now.

“I guess,” Harper says, mouth twisting, “at least I’m here with all the details. Blair says she and Tyrone had a hell of a time figuring you guys out without the context.”

It’s nice that Tyrone hasn’t just entirely disappeared off to his new team, leaving severed emotional ties fraying behind him. Not that Annika would know anything about that, of course. Ahem. Still, she gets questions about leadership or about thinking outside the box, the occasional one-liner she hopes he’s said aloud and not just written down for her benefit. They don’t… gossip.

“Do you guys have a group chat?” she asks suspicious.

“Of course we do,” Harper replies. “I’m the office correspondent at the moment.”

“Oh, you’re writing all this down, are you?” Michael looks way too amused about this. “If that’s the case, I’m sure we can come up with something worse.”

Harper looks like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry; Annika’s been there too.

-

Jake is off at a conference of some description; Annika was thinking about tagging along, eating room service, maybe turning up to one of his presentations to heckle any parts that sound like they might be about her. You know: normal, mature romantic partner stuff. But there’ll be time enough for that later on when things feel more settled: she has to believe that there will be a next time. A time after that. She and Jake have decided on the long haul, one day his trips won’t even have novelty value, Morgan won’t be asking about the amenities at various hotels and making thoughtful noises about how she really deserves to be taken to a spa, all things considered.

It's better for them to sit at home with a takeaway; Jake has slotted surprisingly well into their lives, their house, their routines, but it was just Annika and Morgan for sixteen years and no matter what the future holds, no matter who the future holds, Annika doesn’t want their relationship to get lost in the shuffle.

“It was weird getting back to an empty house today,” Morgan remarks, picking olives off her pizza and neatly putting them in Annika’s half of the box, a routine they’ve had for so many years that it doesn’t occur to either of them to just order pizza without olives.

“So it’s going okay, having Jake here?” Annika checks.

Morgan laughs through a mouthful of pizza, though she does at least swallow before she answers. “He’s your boyfriend,” she says.

Annika gently elbows her. “You know what I mean.”

Morgan smiles, a sweet, genuine one Annika lost for a while there. “It’s your first time doing romantic cohabitation,” she says, elbowing back. “And he wasn’t scared off when we ran out of clean crockery and you were making yourself coffee in a cereal bowl, and he’s already experienced Morfar’s speech about cuisine, and he doesn’t even mind when you’re working a case and get all in your head and just mumble weird stuff about books no one has read instead of having normal conversations.”

This is true: he’s been very good.

“A lot of people have read Anna Karenina, actually,” Annika says, unable to resist.

Morgan is looking thoughtful now, a little furrow forming between her brows. “Is it your first time doing romantic cohabitation?” she asks.

“Well, you had that imaginary friend when you were four, but you know that Askel’s been our only houseguest,” Annika says, eating a couple of the abandoned olives. “You were the one nagging me about bringing boyfriends home, remember?”

Morgan’s mouth twists and oh. Oh. “So, you didn’t…”

“No!” Annika says quickly. “No, no. God, no. We weren’t… Michael is very, you know, tidy, and I’m…”

“The kind of person who has to do an emergency run to the shops because we’ve run out of clean underwear?” Morgan suggests, and the tension has slid back out of her shoulders.

“We’ve not had to do that for a while now,” Annika protests.

“Clearly Jake’s wholesome influence,” Morgan teases.

Back in the day, Michael was less about pillow talk than he was about remaking the bed with hospital corners. Not that they were particularly good at making it to a bed; they were so much younger, so much more spry, everyone’s knees and backs and necks and other extremities just a lot more… functional.

They finish the pizza in companionable silence, and it’s like so many evenings from the last sixteen years, and yet not like them at all. Morgan gets up to dump the pizza box in the kitchen – she might put it in the recycling before Jake gets home, she might not – and when she gets back to the sofa she’s pulled her jumper cuffs over her hands. She curls a leg under her when she sits down, angles herself toward Annika, fiddles with a lock of hair.

“What would you have told me,” she begins hesitantly, and Annika can see that she’s been turning this question over in her mind for a while, feeling out its edges, deciding how she feels about it. “If I had asked when I was younger. What would you have told me about my dad?”

“That I’m glad you got his hair and didn’t get his nose,” Annika replies.

Morgan half-laughs, half-groans. “Mum,” she complains, “seriously.”

“Seriously!” Annika says. “It was a valid concern!” She looks at her daughter, all worried eyes and nervous hope, and sighs. “I’d have told you he was a good man. That he sang better than me and cooked better than me.”

“That’s a pretty low bar,” Morgan murmurs, but Annika knows she’s not trying to derail the conversation; it’s just automatic teenage snarking.

“He could make me laugh like no one else ever had,” Annika tells her. “He was smart. He had strong opinions and strong beliefs and didn’t back down from a fight.” She drops her gaze to her hands, where she’s fidgeting with the hem of Morgan’s oversized jumper. Morgan doesn’t seem to have noticed. “He wasn’t domesticated back then,” she adds, softer. “I wasn’t either.” She leaves space for Morgan to drawl you’re domesticated now? but she’s quiet. “We had too many gaps, too many sharp edges. I wasn’t sure what sort of father he’d be but I was sure that we couldn’t raise a child together.”

Annika lets her head tip into the back of the sofa, sighs. “We know what we are, but not what we may be,” she quotes, words bitter on her tongue.

“Anna Karenina?” Morgan guesses. Her voice sounds a little thick but that’s okay; Annika’s isn’t exactly steady either.

“Shakespeare,” Annika corrects her automatically. “We really need to work on what you’re reading.”

“Is this that cursed book group Blair says you’re trying to start?” Morgan asks.

Annika’s not sure at what point her life started having so many bloody people in it. “It’s enrichment,” she says, just for the way it makes Morgan’s nose scrunch in horror.

After a minute, her daughter offers: “it’s okay, you know. Kirsten at school, her parents got divorced a couple of years back, it was so messy, she’s way more fucked up than me. Sort of embarrassed for her, really.”

It’s not like Annika hasn’t wondered if Morgan would have felt safer with two parents, if her anxiety would have been better if it hadn’t just been her and her reckless mess of a mother. But she doubts either of them would have given up their jobs, their callings, so then Morgan would have had two cops for parents who weren’t great at communicating with her or with each other and she’d still have been letting herself into an empty house in the evening, flicking the light switches on alone.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Annika doesn’t realise she’s said it aloud until Morgan is rolling her eyes, bouncing up to put the kettle on.

Look, it’s not her fault that their last case managed to have some parallels to Tolstoy’s masterpiece; though their Anna stepped in front of a motorboat instead of a train, and the novel’s themes of passion and infidelity are always relevant, and Jake read it at university and was very happy to bicker over ways of interpreting Vronksy of an evening, and when Harper stripped their evidence from the board at the end of the night Michael clapped her on the shoulder and dropped his voice to offer: if Annika suggests you co-read War and Peace, run for your life, that was weeks of my bloody life I’ll never get back like he didn’t shed a tear or two for Prince Andrei.

“We’re not that unhappy.” Morgan’s voice cuts into Annika’s reminiscing. She can see that Morgan has folded away everything Annika has said tonight – well, maybe not the literary quotations, though she should probably retain those too – to muse over in her own time. Annika would love to do the hard emotional work for her, to make this easier, but that’s one of those things that you have to learn being a parent: sometimes you just can’t.

“That makes a change,” Annika says brightly. “Could you maybe announce that the next time you’re in a school play?”

Morgan rolls her eyes, banging the cupboard doors a little too loud as she starts making tea. She reappears a couple of minutes later with steaming mugs, setting them down on the coasters they seem to have acquired since Jake moved in.

“What would you have done if I’d said I didn’t like living with Jake?” Morgan asks, but her eyes are bright so Annika knows she doesn’t mean the question that seriously. “Would he have got back from his conference to find you’d thrown his stuff out on the street?”

“That depends on whether he stole us all the tiny hotel room toiletries,” Annika says pragmatically. She darts a sideways look. “I mean, I think Michael has a spare room.”

She rejoices in Morgan’s incredulous peal of laughter; it lets her know she can’t be doing that terrible a job.

-

“The girls are with Astrid’s parents for the weekend,” Michael says as they drive over to interview a suspect. “Astrid wants to invite you and Morgan and Jake over for dinner.”

Annika blinks a couple of times. “Definitely Jake too?” she checks.

“Sure,” Michael says; his tone is light enough but there’s a tension in his shoulders, in the corners of his mouth. “I think she wants to get together everyone involved in this…”

“Clusterfuck?” Annika offers.

“…family,” Michael finishes. He tilts his head. “But your suggestion works too.” He glances away from the road to smirk at her. “Between you and me, I think Astrid just wants to ogle your boy.”

“He’s definitely ogle-able,” Annika agrees, over the high-pitched buzzing happening in her brain.

“So you’ve made abundantly clear,” Michael says drily.

“It’s those cuffed dad jeans,” Annika tells him. “They’re not doing you any favours.”

Michael ignores her, but it’s not like she’s wrong.

They’re a little late in the actual event because, well, Annika didn’t want to come in the first place, and Morgan is a ball of nervous energy, and Jake, designated Muppet wrangler, made them stop and pick up flowers to take with them. He’s such a delight. Annika is punching so far above her weight. By the end of tonight he’ll be kicking himself out on the street.

“So, you’re spiralling,” Michael says conversationally as he pulls the front door open.

“So’re you,” Annika mutters, pushes past him to take her boots off like she’s the teenager here.

Behind her, Morgan and Michael exchange one of those hugs that’re getting more natural every time, and then there’s some kind of masculine handshake between Jake and Michael that she catches in her peripheral vision that she doesn’t bother to work out. She doesn’t think it’s jealousy, not exactly, but then that means it’s something worse and Annika does not have the bandwidth right now to pick any of that apart.

Astrid presses a glass of red into Annika’s hand and a kiss to her cheek. The kitchen is clean and warm and bright and smells amazing, like this is a real evening, like they’re all real adults who can do this.

“You’re a better woman than I am,” Annika tells her.

“Nah, different skillsets,” Astrid replies, and winks.

Dinner actually ends up going completely fine, because Jake and Astrid are normal people who are capable of carrying a real conversation: Jake is charming and Astrid is well-versed in coaxing Michael at his most mumbly. Morgan is nervous but not unhappy about having everyone in the same place, and no one asks too much of Annika so she can shovel an annoyingly nice lasagna and beautifully dressed salad into her face. Astrid keeps everyone’s wine glasses discreetly topped up and well, hopefully no one is going to be dropping dead in a body of water tonight because two-thirds of the MHU is going to be off its game tomorrow.

“Can I…?” Morgan opens big eyes at everyone else’s wine glasses; she looks to Michael, then Jake, and finally to Annika. Annika is not going to obsess about this. She’s not. Morgan’s just going in order of who she thinks will be the softest touch, that’s all.

Astrid arches an eyebrow at Annika, who sighs and nods, and Morgan is provided with half a glass of red wine of her own. It’s a half-passable Chianti, sharp enough to compliment the meal; Morgan’s expression scrunches when she takes her first sip, but she goes back for a second anyway.

Afterwards, Michael makes coffee while Astrid clears the plates and it’s so easy, they probably do this kind of thing all the time, dinner parties and normal human interaction and, well, okay, they probably don’t have to navigate this particular social tightrope very often unless Astrid’s been playing her cards very close to her chest. Morgan bounces up to help with the dishwasher and Annika leans into Jake for a moment, lets him press a kiss to her temple.

“Maybe they can adopt both of us,” she muses, sotto voce, watching Astrid and Michael and Morgan navigate the kitchen with familial ease. “It’s nice here.”

“It was a very good lasagne,” Jake agrees softly.

“Alright,” Annika says, “I’ll ask if they can adopt all three of us.”

They all fold into the sofas with coffee and a thread of tension enters the air of the room. Jake is a warm solid presence on Annika’s right; on her left, she can feel Morgan trying not to squirm. Opposite them, Michael is staring down into his cup like he does when he’s trying to snap the disparate pieces of a case back together.

“Don’t look at me,” Astrid says mildly, “I just thought it was important to get all of you in the same room. You know.” She waves at them each in turn. “Morgan, Morgan’s mum, Morgan’s dad, Morgan’s…”

“Housemate,” Jake supplies.

This is a label that Morgan and Jake came up with themselves and seem very happy with; Annika’s not entirely sure about it, personally, but then ‘mum’s boyfriend’ comes with all these connotations and ‘stepdad’ is entirely too premature at this stage.

“Housemate,” Astrid confirms.

Michael scoffs softly, gaze still on his coffee.

“He doesn’t dislike you,” Annika says to Jake, in the spirit of olive branches and openness and whatever the fuck is going on here, “he’s just seen me make a lot of terrible decisions over the years and hasn’t decided yet if you’re one of them.”

The coffee’s a little too hot and scalds her tongue; she looks up in the abrupt silence to find everyone staring at her. Sure, there have been a lot of variables lately, but life-shattering secrets aside, she and Michael have always been able to read each other. Even when they shouldn’t have. Even when they’d rather not have been able to.

“I think Jake is great,” Morgan pipes up loyally, and Annika puts an arm around her shoulders, squeezes.

“So, I’m not relegated to Michael and Astrid’s spare room?” Jake asks.

“Not yet,” Morgan confirms on a laugh.

“You weren’t supposed to tell him that,” Annika hisses.

“Everyone knows you have to keep men on their toes and their best behaviour,” Morgan replies primly, reaching to pick up her coffee.

She’s not wrong but Annika does wonder briefly if Michael is going to interpret that as her indoctrinating their daughter with all sorts of… oh, what does it matter. Jake is laughing, which is the most important part.

“Morgan,” Astrid says, with the air of a woman willing to let this unspool for her amusement but also aware that this evening has to end at some point. “Did you want to discuss anything, or did you have any questions?”

“Erm, what sort of questions?” Morgan asks, something vaguely panicked crossing her face.

“Anything you want,” Michael replies. “We agreed we’d be as honest with you as you want.”

There are one or two things Annika would quite like to gloss over, but she’s fairly sure Morgan’s not going to ask things like what were the specifics of my conception and what do you mean a boat was probably involved.

Morgan’s gaze darts around all of them and then she seems to steel herself and says: “Were you two dating?”

Michael’s response is to sputter a bit and Annika stammers several syllables that, as it turns out, are not actual words.

“…we weren’t not dating?” Michael concludes at last, looking at Annika. She could hang him out to dry, but instead she nods a grudging confirmation.

Morgan nods too, like something has been crossed off her internal list. “And were you in love?”

God, sixteen feels so fucking young at times. But it’s a valid question, for all that it makes Annika’s lungs feel like they’ve filled with seawater. Michael’s expression doesn’t flicker but he doesn’t say anything, lets Annika know with his steady gaze that this one’s in her lap.

“…we weren’t not in love,” she manages.

Morgan huffs a half-laugh. Jake says: “Was it like this all the time between you?”

Michael pins him with a look. “Usually it was much worse.”

“I always assumed your mum broke his heart, just a wee bit,” Astrid tells Morgan with an ease that Annika both admires and hates her for.

“Astrid,” Michael says, going for a warning tone and just managing to sound pained.

She shrugs, unrepentant. “Annika is the only one of your exes I know anything about,” she says.

“She was barely an ex,” Michael mutters.

“Mum,” Morgan says, twisting to face her on the sofa, “what did you do?”

“I left,” Annika replies, trying not to make it sound casual, like it wasn’t something that she thought about for years afterwards. “Well, you and I left, although I think you were about the size of an avocado at the time so you didn’t get a lot of say about it.”

“I left for a two-week intensive police diving course,” Michael says, light, although his teeth sound gritted. “And when I came back you had completely left Glasgow, and changed your phone number.”

Okay, well, when he puts it like that it does sound quite bad.

Jake sucks in a soft breath through his teeth; Morgan looks horrified. “Mum!”

“We were never very good at goodbyes,” Annika says.

“I’m great at them,” Michael corrects her. “This one’s on you.”

“I’ll add it to all the others,” Annika mumbles, and his mouth softens minutely.

They’ve fallen into silence; Morgan looks antsy, while Astrid has her hand supportively on Michael’s knee. Annika wonders briefly if she should offer to go, to leave the rest of them to it.

“Morgan,” Jake says quietly, and he’s using his therapist voice now: calm, steady, supportive, authoritative. Annika feels a sudden rush of gladness that he’s here, invested but detached enough to remain focused on the important things. “Nothing happens in a vacuum, so of course there are a lot of emotions tied up in your… creation. But both of your parents have committed to being honest with you and to answering any questions that you have. If there’s anything you want to know, they would rather you asked them than being left stewing about it.”

God, she’s got herself one hell of a sexy boyfriend; Annika does appreciate his gravitas. She enjoys it a lot more when it’s not dragging a host of her not-exactly-good moments into the light, but, well, some part of her always knew that this reckoning was coming. Maybe not exactly like this, but Morgan deserves everything, no matter what it takes.

Morgan’s mouth twists from side to side as she visibly constructs her next question, and Annika debates seeing if she can fit underneath that coffee table.

“Why did you know that you weren’t going to work out?” Morgan asks at last.

I’m a disaster, Annika wants to blurt, I’m still mostly certain that Jake’s going to wake up one day and discover he’s been concussed this entire time, of course we had no future.

“What,” Michael says, “other than us both being highly ambitious people who get on each other’s nerves?”

Morgan’s not letting anyone off that easy. “You don’t only get on each other’s nerves,” she points out.

Annika is trying to work out something to say that isn’t it was a gut feeling but it seems like Michael isn’t done. He sighs deeply and shifts on the sofa, reaching to put his coffee down.

“My home, when I was growing up, was… not great,” he tells Morgan, speaking directly and only to her. “We can talk about it another time if you’d like, but there was a lot of chaos and no boundaries and I never wanted any of that in my adult life. And your mum… well, all she had with your grandparents were rules and expectations, and there was no way she wanted a life that looked like that.”

Annika swallows and it hurts. Of course she kind of knew all of these things, but the vague impressions had never coalesced into specifics, not like this. And she didn’t know that Michael knew. She suspects that she looks slapped. Knowing one another too well cuts both ways, after all.

Morgan, bless her, looks around at everyone’s expressions and offers up: “mum’s never been very tidy.”

It neatly lowers the atmosphere from something verging on the fraught to something much more manageable.

Michael cracks a smile. “Found a pair of her knickers under my sofa once,” he says.

“Oh, she still does that,” Jake offers, and Annika wants to defend herself but knows that this isn’t the moment; she rolls her eyes, presses a kiss to Morgan’s hair, hopes that the show and tell portion of all this is almost over.

-

One of these days, Annika might stop feeling like she’s got detention when she has to stay late in the evening working through paperwork and team reviews with Oban. Diane spends the entire time carefully talking about the spirit of openness and the importance of trust between colleagues; Annika debates if she’s worked things out or if someone let it slip, and then decides to feign ignorance until Diane straight-up asks her if she and Michael have a child together.

Jake said he was fine sorting dinner tonight, and Annika is looking forward to sprawling on the sofa in front of whatever dreadful TV Morgan has decided they should watch, hopefully with something edible. At this point, she’d quite happily take toast; she’s not fussy.

Instead, she walks in to find Morgan sitting on the sofa in what appears to be a bundle of fuzzy blankets, with Jake on one side of her and Michael on the other. It would be nice if life wasn’t full of daily surprises, but then Annika has invited a whole range of changes through her front door of late.

Morgan offers her a tired smile, mascara clumpy and running a little. “Erin texted,” she says.

“Oh,” Annika says. “Oh. Shit.”

This explains the mug of what appears to be hot chocolate in Morgan’s hands, piled with whipped cream and marshmallows. Annika wasn’t aware their home contained the trappings to prepare that, but it’s nice that it does.

“What did she want?” she asks, finding room to perch on the coffee table since the sofa is so occupied.

“Said she misses me,” Morgan says, sniffs, and buries her face in the hot chocolate.

Annika is semi-ready to drive over to Erin’s and say a lot of mean things she probably has no business saying to a teenage girl. This must show on her face because Jake smiles a little and says: “we called Blair. She’ll be reading Erin the riot act somewhere around now.”

It’s probably unfair to co-opt the big sister but hey, nothing’s fair in teenage romance.

“I’m sorry,” Annika says, putting her hands on Morgan’s knees. “I’m sorry Erin has absolutely no emotional intelligence and that I wasn’t here.”

Morgan gives her a wan smile. “It’s okay,” she says quietly. “Jake and Michael have been pretty great.”

Annika doesn’t miss the way both men discreetly puff up a little, and her heart thumps. She looks at the three of them on the sofa and feels a grin tugging at her mouth.

“You know what they say…” she begins.

“Don’t,” Michael groans, covering his eyes.

“Just like buses,” Annika confirms. “No father figures for sixteen years, and then two come along at once.”

Morgan laughs even though it looks like she really doesn’t want to, and Jake shakes his head in a way that at least looks fond. It’s nice how she hasn’t scared him off yet.

“Did they arm wrestle over who got to make you hot chocolate?” Annika asks Morgan. She’s not completely sure how Michael came to be here, who called for back-up, but it also doesn’t really matter. He’s here, and Morgan is glad about it, and maybe Annika is a little too.

“I left that to the master,” Jake says mildly.

“It’s a little different, but I do live in a household full of crushes and gossiping and who danced with who at the school disco,” Michael shrugs. “And do not get me started on the Valentine’s Day cards with the glitter glue.”

Annika watched her little girl growing up mostly horrified by little boys and putting way too much importance into her female friendships until Erin finally came out when she was 12. It was all very emotional and complicated in its own way but she can’t say she’s not relieved she didn’t miss that particular aspect of tweenage crushes.

“You not on duty tonight?” she asks mildly.

Michael shakes his head. “Astrid and the girls have some kind of… girl pampering thing going on, nail painting and hair braiding, they made it very clear they don’t need me.” His mouth curves. “Not that I’m a slouch in either department, I take my role very seriously.”

“Did you let them practice hair braiding on you?” Annika asks, and his expression gets shifty. “You did! Are there photos of you with all those butterfly hairclips dotted about?”

“Are there?” Morgan echoes, looking immensely cheered up.

“You can see them,” he tells Morgan, and snaps a finger gun at Annika. “You can’t.”

Annika rolls her eyes, and then squeezes Morgan’s knees. “How are you doing?” she asks softly. “I know the Emergency Dad Squad seem to have done a good job, but I’m still sorry I wasn’t here.”

“I’m okay,” Morgan confirms. “There’s actually a girl in my maths class I’ve been talking to. They’ve been giving me advice.”

Annika had clocked the rainbow flag pin that had appeared discreetly on the flap of Michael’s bag, and it’s not like she thought that Morgan’s sexuality was going to be a problem with either of these men – if she’d thought it would be, she’d not have let them into her life, let alone Morgan’s – but she still has a moment of something warm and fuzzy in her chest.

“Have they now?” she says drily.

“I’m very charming,” Jake replies with ease, giving her a look that Annika feels down to her toes.

“You are,” she confirms, remembering she probably can’t flirt with her boyfriend right now with the worst possible audience. She switches her attention to Michael. “I don’t remember you being charming.”

“I’ve always managed to get by,” he points out.

“He got Astrid,” Morgan protests. “And, well, apparently you.”

“That reminds me,” Annika says, gliding swiftly over all of that, “you could just have asked me for dating advice!”

Morgan raises her eyebrows. “Really? Because Jake is your first boyfriend in… forever.”

“And that’s going great,” Annika tells her, waving a hand in the vague direction of Jake’s books snugly on the shelves, Jake’s boots by the door, Jake sitting right there on the sofa in fact. “Anyway, I dated as a teen.”

“You were dating in a school with like, fifteen other kids in it,” Morgan points out, making a face. “That didn’t require, like, skill. That was proximity.”

Ouch. Annika stands up, shaking her head. “Okay, well, while I’m busy bleeding out from that one, is there something I can eat for dinner? Or is it just marshmallows?”

“There’s a plate in the oven for you,” Jake tells her, and she uses that as a chance to escape with a shred of dignity. Possibly. If it isn’t entirely too late for that.

-

Blair is officially still on maternity leave, but she’s restless, stuck at home with a tiny creature who needs constant care but who also sleeps a lot of the time. Some kind of deal has been struck with Oban and HR and now Blair can consult via video periodically; it’s unspoken that it’s better she uses her IT skills for good productive work reasons than for the ways she was using them when she was younger and bored out of her mind.

Back at the office, Harper is cross-referencing alibis with Blair and the CCTV footage, aided occasionally by Isla’s tiny little noises from where she’s in a cosy sling on her mum’s chest. Annika and Michael have been interviewing a potential suspect but he’s turned out to be a bust, and they end up taking the scenic route back; there’s likely no one else to check out until Harper and Blair are done anyway. Michael jerked his head toward the cemetery that they were passing, remarked I never showed you my ma’s bench, did I? and now here they are in the sunshine, grass and stone.

“So, I’m a selkie, am I?” Michael asks out of nowhere. It seems like he’s finally finished reviewing the past few months, the moments when everything started to change, drawn his conclusions.

“It made sense at the time,” Annika replies.

“I wouldn’t get Morgan shot,” Michael tells her. “I mean, I have no intention of getting shot myself, while I’m at it.”

“If you’d just let me sing you the bloody song in the car then it would have saved us a whole lot of… something, anyway,” Annika huffs. Michael makes a soft sound that isn’t quite assent, leaves the silence in her lap. “I wrote a letter, you know?” she offers. “I had it with my will, so if I did die, you’d get told about Morgan properly.”

It was probably not a good letter; she didn’t reread it after establishing it wouldn’t be needed after all, but it did go on for rather a lot of pages.

Michael sighs. “And which poet did you quote?” he asks, resigned.

Annika could lie to him; she did it as easily as breathing for sixteen years. “Christina Rossetti,” she admits.

They sit on the bench dedicated to Michael’s mum in a silence that feels peaceful for maybe the first time in a long time.

“When Bess was born,” Michael begins eventually, “we had to think about who we wanted in her life. About her godparents. By then, I’d heard through friends of friends where you were, that you were on the force, that you weren’t back in Norway or dead in a ditch or whatever. And even with everything… I kind of wanted you to be Bess’ godmother.”

That one hurts, and Annika doesn’t even think that it’s meant to. Not this time. She digs her nails into the palm of her left hand.

“Probably best you didn’t reach out in the end,” she offers, trying to keep her voice even.

Michael’s smile edges toward rueful. “I thought it was best not to tear it all back open again.” He tilts his head. “I think I’m trying to tell you that while there’s a part of me that can never forgive you for not telling me about Morgan… a lot of me is just glad to have you back in life and on my side.”

“I’d have been a lousy godmother,” Annika offers. “Terrible at remembering birthdays.”

“But you’d have had her back where it counted,” Michael counters. Catches her flitting gaze. “I know you will have her back where it counts.”

Annika would love to wonder when her little familial unit of two that had its cracks and flaws but which was hers suddenly expanded to include all of these extra people, but she already knows, and it dated back long before the truth spilled out in that comedy club.

She asked Jake the other night if she needed to meet his ex-wife, just for the sake of completionism; he laughed and kissed her until she wasn’t thinking about his life before her at all. So that’s a relief, at least: one person off the list.

“When will all of this become normal, do you think?” she asks aloud.

“Well, we’re all working on it,” Michael points out. “I mean, I always knew that we had unfinished business: I just didn’t realise that unfinished business had a living, breathing physical manifestation.”

Annika shifts to look at him. “Been working on that one for a while?”

“It has a nice ring to it,” Michael replies, smiles with teeth.

Morgan wonders if her therapist these days is enjoying herself when she’s listening to Morgan’s increasingly tangled family drama; Jake confirmed that even if she is, she won’t say it to Morgan’s face, and Morgan is debating taking popcorn along to a session one of these days. Her girl, who isn’t only her girl.

“We’re getting there too, right?” Annika asks, even though she doesn’t want to.

Michael surveys her quietly with those eyes that have and have not changed.

“I’ve always told you things I’ve never told anyone else,” he says, which isn’t an answer.

Annika shrugs. “That’s just my skillset,” she says. “It works on suspects too or we’d never get anywhere.”

He slants a grin at her, and oh, for a split second, for it to be about seventeen years ago.

“I have a horrible suspicion that you might be what my girls would refer to as my ‘best friend’,” he tells her wryly.

“Oh God,” Annika says. “That’s… that’s very alarming. We’re adults, surely we’ve aged out of needing best friends.”

“You’d think,” Michael agrees, and before either of them can say anything else, Harper calls: she and Blair have found something. Michael hops off the bench, starts walking away from her back toward the cemetery entrance, and the car.

Going in the morning after the first time they’d slept together, Annika was fairly certain she was going to have to move to some kind of tiny Scottish village full of mostly shepherds and she’d solve crimes mostly involving sheep theft with their population of about fifty people. She’d snuck out after Michael had fallen asleep and spent half the night berating herself and she had a love bite it had been a nightmare to cover up. Then Michael had just turned up and handed her a paper cup of coffee made exactly the way she liked, smacked her on the shoulder and walked away. Watching his retreating back, Annika had thought something along the lines of oh, fuck, we’re going to be alright.

She feels something very similar happening now.

“I think you might be my best friend too,” she calls after him, no matter how awkward it feels to say it, no matter how childish it sounds; she maybe owes him that much.

Michael turns back to look at her, sunshine in his eyes, breeze whipping his curls into his face. “I know,” he calls back, and keeps on walking.

Well then. Maybe, fuck, they really are going to be alright.