September first, 1998

16

"Hey Kid" he smiled as he walked through the door, as Jenna ran towards him and hugged him tightly.

"How were those kids at school today, they didn't say anything mean, did they?" He asked, surprisingly genuinely interested.

"Yeh, but like you said, if I don't like them, then it doesn't matter what they say" she said, more confidently than that morning, but he still wasn't entirely convinced she meant it. Either way, she seemed okay.

"Is your mom around, I need to talk to her about something" he asked.

"She's in the kitchen making dinner"

"Okay, well, I need to speak to her, do you have any homework to finish?" He laughed as Jenna rolled her eyes at him.

"I know you're my dad and everything, but you don't have the right yet to tell me to do homework" she sighed.

"But I do, so you better finish it you d lady" a voice said behind her. Veronica was leant against the kitchen door frame with her arms crossed. With that, Jenna reluctantly went to her room to finish her French homework. JD smiled to himself, this was only a small taste of parenting, but he was kind of excited to see where it would lead him.

"So, what happened at work" Veronica asked once Jenna was out of earshot, heading back into the kitchen as JD followed her.

"Well, I phoned everyone, and it was going okay until the last few. Duke, Mac and Martha all mentioned "Veronica's creepy boyfriend", which on a side note is quite depressing when you hear that that's all people remember about you, but still" he shrugged "anyway, Duke's convinced they were all suicides, Mac said if it was anyone it was either me or Duke, but Martha's the one that's dangerous. She gave me every detail about our relationship that she could remember, and gave as much information about me that she could. I bet she'll keep track of the investigation, and it won't be long before she mentions her findings to any officer that isn't the killer himself, so that's not great."

"So what do we do now?" Veronica asked, slightly stressed out. She loved Martha, but his she could be a pain in the ass at times. She seemed to know everything about everyone.

"Well, by the looks of it, no one else in my station seems to care that much about their jobs, it's one hell of a shit show in their, no wonder we never got caught!" At this, the pair laughed slightly, despite the severity of their situation. "So I'm just going to keep monitoring the progress of the investigation. I doubt they'll find any more evidence in a while, considering how old it all is, however we can't be too careful. There's a chance you might be called up, or we might have to visit you. Just incase, even if it's me phoning you, you need to stay calm when being questioned. You never know if I'm with my boss during the call so don't reveal anything. Especially if we visit you in person. You have to act like you don't know me at all, and we can only hope that Jenna wouldn't be here."

Veronica nodded, taking it all in. In a way this felt just as it did after the murders, when JD was helping her cover their tracks with fake suicide notes, depressing literature and gay artefacts. They were still hiding from the police, but this time, JD was the police. She would just go along with it all and hope they wouldn't get caught.

"Okay, well, by the sound of it, if your team doesn't work when they're on the clock, they definitely won't be working now. So, I suggest you forget about it for tonight, if you want you can stay for dinner, Jenna's been begging me all day to invite you over, she's just so excited that you're here" Veronica admitted. As much as she would have wanted to introduce JD and Jenna on better terms, she was relieved that they seemed to get along so well.

"That sounds great, thank you" JD said, smiling about the fact that Jenna had been so excited to see him.

"Okay, I'll go and get her now, we should be able to eat in about ten minutes." With that, Veronica left the kitchen to go and call down Jenna.

Thirty seconds later, Jenna came bounding into the kitchen, excited to have dinner and to bombard JD with questions. As they ate, she asked him a series of random quick fire questions as if to make up for the eight years they had missed getting to know each other.

"Favourite snack?"
"Slushies"
"Favourite colour?"
"Blue"
"Favourite ice cream flavour?"
"Cookie dough"
"Favourite..."

"Okay, that's enough of the favourite questions" Veronica laughed, causing Jenna to stick her tongue out at her mother "ask some different questions, they're too annoying!"

"Okay, what are your parents like?" Jenna asked.

Shit Veronica thought. They should have stuck to the favourite questions. She saw JD's gaze drop slightly, and was surprised, and quite proud, of how he managed to keep his emotions in line. With a false sense of nonchalance, JD calmly answered the question.

"Um, well, my mom dies when I was little, I my dad wasn't really a nice person. Okay, next question, what subject's do you like at school?" He asked quickly.

Knowing that it was probably best to ignore the answer about her grandparents, Jenna also swiftly ditched the subject.

"I like English, but I hate everything else. Especially maths. I want to be a writer" she beamed up at him.

"Wow, that's cool kid, have you written any novels yet?" JD asked as enthusiastic as he could be after thinking about his parents.

Veronica observed them chatting away about everything under the sun. Small things, but it meant a lot to her that Jenna liked JD so much. She was also very proud, albeit surprised, with JD's natural paternal instincts. Even with hard topics, he was calm and controlled, and was able to make Jenna laugh. This was a completely different JD to the one she watched blow himself up. It was like JD, but only the good parts. Even Veronica had struggled to bond with her daughter recently. She had been too focused on herself at times, and she could see the instant change in Jenna as she spoke to JD. She was just constantly smiling. If only it could have been that way for the last eight years, they had missed out on so much. And with everything that was going on with the murder case, Veronica feared that it would all be taken away again.