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One month later...

"Not a day goes by that I don't think about it."

_ _

_ Reid sat on the couch in Dr. Soto's office as relaxed as he could be, his arms outstretched over the back of the overstuffed leather sofa. He wet his lips. Sighed. Fixed his gaze on nothing in particular. Shook his head, and continued._

_ _

_ "I mean, how can I not? Things just aren't the same anymore without Lucy around. Our outfit lost some of its soul with her."_

_ _

_ "Change is inevitable, Reid. Change is as they say in the wedding vows, 'for better or for worse'. Thing is, there's no negotiating with life. It's just how things go. All we can do is adapt and overcome."_

_ _

_ Reid just nodded with an air of finality, suggesting that he understood, but did not want to accept that as fact._

_ _

_ "You're still grieving, and I want you to know that that's normal. One month's time is hardly sufficient to recover from dealing with losing one's child. It will take time. It may take months, or even years, but what I want you to remember, Reid, is that you've set yourself up for success. You've surrounded yourself with people who love and care about you. You've taken care of yourself. Continue to do so, and I promise you, you'll be fine."_

_ _

_ "I'll take you word for it."_

_ _

_ "Have I ever steered you wrong before?" Dr. Soto winked. Reid turned the corner of his mouth up in the slyest of grins, shaking his head gently and flicking his gaze down to the ornate rug upon which his feet were crossed._

_ _

_ "It's the same way with Aiden. With Jeff, or Frank, or Paul. Honor the people who made your life worth living by living. You've got everything in the world to live for now, don't you?" She asked. Reid turned to look at her. She was right._

_ _

_ "You're going to be just fine, Reid. Based on what you told me today, you've got nothing but good times ahead of you. You're not even forty yet, you're in good shape, and you've got something you always wanted. You've got a family."_

Dr. Soto's words never left Reid's mind as he shot down Interstate 10 through New Mexico, headed for the Lone Star State. He'd dealt with so much loss that he'd become conditioned to it - conditioned to hate it. Even the good doctor's suggestion that Reid was no longer in need of her services felt like a minor loss, but she'd asserted that it was quite the opposite. For all he'd lost, he'd gained so much more in its wake. In front of him, the supercharged engine of his beloved Ford Mustang thrummed, running on cruise control while the dog rested one hand gently on the wheel. Darkness loomed ahead as the sun set behind him, and he cherished each fleeting moment that he wasn't alone when another driver or a semi-truck passed him going the other direction. It made the highway that much more bearable, even if only for an instant.

Lucy hadn't left any dying wishes for those who survived her. No partiality to cremation over burial, no preference for the location of her grave. Why would she have? She was still just a teenager, teenagers didn't think about those things, unless they were in the service, according to Xavier. He tried not to think about it, but somehow, anything he thought about found its way back to Lucy. He looked up to the night sky in front of him as he approached El Paso at the eleventh hour, streaked with clouds and lit by stars and a full moon. If there was a Heaven, Reid thought, she was up there now. Las Cruces beckoned him with a shady motel, so he stopped to rest. He'd been driving all day, and he had a phone call to make, one that he dialed while resting on a cheap mattress watching the news on a CRT television set.

Back in California, Vance darted into the kitchen in pajama pants and a T-shirt, scooping his phone up. "Hey, Reid." He answered and flopped down onto the sofa.

"Hey, babe. How was work?"

"About like usual. I just put Kaitlin down for bed. She's missing her pops, you know."

Reid smiled and laughed quietly through his nose, "Well, give her a goodnight kiss for me."

"Sure will. Where are you now?"

"I'm in Las Cruces. Stopped off for the night, I should make Houston by tomorrow."

"All right." Vance nodded, and was quiet for a few seconds before he spoke again, "Are you sure this is what you want to do?"

"I'm sure. I've thought about it every day since." Reid said quietly. On TV, the weatherman droned on. "I'll never be able to make peace with myself if I don't."

"I understand." Vance said, "Just...be careful, okay?"

"I will. I'm pretty tired; I think I'm going to go to sleep now."

"Okay. I wish I could be there with you now."

Reid smiled softly, "Me too."

"Love you. Sleep well."

"Love you too babe. Goodnight."

Reid slept for a good six hours, save for the minutes that were stained by the nightmares he suffered. Vivid imagines played through his mind. Things he'd never seen in his wildest of dreams. Not until he knew about Lucy's past, anyway. They awoke him with a start, and usually, he could lie back down and drift back off to sleep, but they'd been getting worse. Day after day, they grew more vivid. Louder. Brighter. Clearer. Until it was as if he was watching it in the theater. The only way to address the issue, he was convinced, was to confront it directly. He'd needed Josie's help - and she was all too happy to deliver.

"He goes there to buy drugs." Josie had explained, "Nine o'clock sharp on Tuesday nights, he leaves to go to a truck stop where he gets his week's stash. It's like clockwork, you can't miss him."

_ _

_ _ Nine o'clock PM the next day found him deep in the heart of Texas, Houston a backlit skyline in his rear view mirror, California thousands of miles behind him. The Baytown truck stop's sign flashed like a beacon in the indigo sky, rising high above the highway and advertising diesel at a competitive rate. The Mustang thrummed gutturally as Reid swung it into a parking spot and brought it to a stop. Nearly twenty-four hours of driving had brought him to that truck stop, and it was too late to turn back now. People went about their business as usual, buying their sodas and peanuts and whatever else they needed for the long haul, while Reid took a deep breath and reached behind the passenger seat where he pulled out a cheap, fixed-blade knife that he kept there for use in the event of a carjacking.

Reid turned the knife over and over in his hand, looking down at his reflection in the polished steel of the blade. The tiny voice of reason echoed in his skull amidst the cloud of hatred and resentment that he had for his target. He wasn't James Bond. If things went awry, there was no escape. Sighing, the cattle dog steeled himself and slid the knife back into the leather sheath, tucking it into his waistband in the small of his back. Reid donned a trucker hat to blend in and to conceal his features, and he departed the vehicle.

What would happen if Brody fought back? What if he got a hold of the knife and used it on him? Reid felt his forehead break into a sweat as he entered the truck stop, and things seemed to move in slow motion for all the adrenaline that was coursing through his veins. He wandered about the store, and every so often looked up from under the bill of his hat to scan for Brody. It didn't occur to him for several minutes that the wolf might be around the back, acquiring his illicit loot. Anxiety was making Reid rumble in his gut, and he decided to stop off in the bathroom.

Reid ducked around the corner and into the tile-walled hall that led into the men's room, quiet but for one occupant who had forgotten to latch their stall door, which Reid opened.

"Oh, excuse me, I'm sorry!" He turned quickly to give the occupant their privacy, but halfway into his one-eighty, the heeler froze. Slowly and silently, he turned to look at who was sitting on the toilet, fully clothed, with a needle hanging from a forearm ravaged from long-term drug use.

Brody Callison sat motionless there on the commode, staring at Reid with the vacant eyes of a man strung out on black tar heroin, evident from the plastic baggie on top of the toilet paper dispenser.

"Hello, Brody." Reid said quietly, his eyes void of expression. Brody did not respond, but simply continued to stare. Reid's eyes flicked down to the injection site in the wolf's arm. The fur around it had fallen out; exposing a patch of pale skin where in the center was a spot of necrotized flesh, the tissue as black and rotten as the wolf's soul.

"Do you know why I'm here?"

Hands quivering, Reid donned a pair of gloves he pulled from his pocket and produced the knife from its sheath, hanging it down at his side and gripping the handle as though his life depended on it. Brody did not answer.

"I came here to kill you for what you did to Lucy, you son of a bitch." The heeler whispered hotly and leaned in to do the deed, but when he pressed the knife to the wolf's throat, Brody slid to one side, nearly falling off the toilet as his head impacted the partition with a thud. Reid balked. Great, he's unconscious, he thought, and readied the knife again, but faltered. Brody couldn't even comprehend what was happening or why, nor could he fight back. There was just something so unsportsmanlike about it. Brody's breathing was ragged and spaced far apart; he couldn't return himself to an upright position, and even blinking his eyes seemed to require an excessive amount of energy.

Reid closed his eyes and pressed his back to the stall partition. Now what? When he opened his eyes again, he found himself staring at the little baggie of heroin, still plump with the sinful, grey powder. Next to that, a spoon, and next to it, a cigarette lighter. He paused. His eyes flicked to Brody, who looked back up at him. He looked down at the needle sticking out of the gangrenous crook of his forearm. Slowly, the heeler plucked the needle out and stared at it. He looked back at Brody, then to the heroin. He returned the knife to its sheath, and locked the stall door.

Chk.

The lighter burst to life with the flick of a switch, and the flame spread over the convex surface of the spoon's bottom. Reid wondered if he even remembered how to do it correctly - it had been almost twenty years since the one time he'd experimented with the drug, and looking at the wolf, he was glad he hadn't fallen into the same trap of addiction. He watched the powder dissolve into the liquid that would concoct the mixture Brody had only recently injected into his veins, and with careful handling of the used needle, he drew the plunger back, sucking the tarry substance into the tube.

Brody eyed him with a vague expression of contempt, not only because he recognized the heeler, but also because it looked as though he were about to partake in the drug that he'd paid so much money to acquire. It was then that Reid grabbed the length of surgical tubing around the wolf's bicep and pulled it taut.

"No..." Brody whispered at last, taking an entire breath to do so, "Too much."

Reid carefully stuck the needle into the wolf's arm.

"This is for Lucy."

He pushed the plunger.

The resulting high was apparent in Brody's eyes as they rolled back in his head. Reid dipped the spoon back into the baggie and grabbed the lighter.

Somewhere between the fourth and fifth & final injections of Mexico's best black tar, Brody Callison stopped breathing. Reid wadded up the little plastic bag after the final injection, and placed the lighter and the spoon back on the toilet paper dispenser.

Brody sat very still, his chest long since having stopped rising and falling with the wide-spaced breaths his body had been fighting to accomplish. Reid felt for a pulse on the wolf's neck, finding nary a throb of the carotid artery, and straightening up, he grinned sourly at the dying man.

"I'm sure if there is a hell, it'll be better than what you deserve. Godspeed, asshole."

***

"Heading to work?" Vance asked, spoon-feeding pureed carrots to Kaitlin in her high-chair. Vance's arm was still in a sling, the other was still in a cast, and he walked with the help of a cane; something he hated, but the physical therapist was certain he wouldn't need it forever. Reid bounded down the stairs in his work shirt, nodding while he grabbed a piece of bacon from off the table and popped it into his muzzle.

"Yep. Got some new candidates to interview today."

"Well, I'll be looking forward to that. Between Kelvin and Veronica, you always hire such interesting individuals." The pit bull joked.

"Oh, hush." Reid laughed and ruffled the other dog's head with his left hand, a gold wedding band shining out from the soft, almost-black hair between his fingers.

"Oh!" Vance stood up and hobbled over to the dining room table, "I meant to give you these as soon as you got back, but you were so tired I figured I would wait. Um...they're the pictures. I had them printed up."

Reid took the envelope from Vance and opened it up, pulling out some four by six glossy photographs. Lucy was smiling in nearly all of them. One with the crew. Another one in her beloved car. Some were of her working on various vehicles, but the one that stood out the most was the portrait picture they'd taken that they planned to use for the website, a 'meet the staff' section of sorts.

"I thought we might frame some of them and put them in the shop." Vance suggested.

"Yeah." Reid nodded, "That'd be nice. Thanks."

"You're welcome." They kissed, "I love you."

"I love you too. I'll see you tonight, okay?"

"Yep. See you tonight."

At the office, Reid dug out a picture frame that he'd had in the office drawer for some time. He'd bought it after promising himself that he would one day confess his relation to Lucy. If everything went according to plan, he'd frame a picture of her on his desk.

With care and precision, he slipped the picture into the photo frame, making sure that all of the edges were perfectly aligned with the mat board surrounding it. Closing up the back, he turned it around to look at his daughter's face. He sighed. Frame in hand; he walked out to the lobby and around to the spot that once was occupied by the Nova, approaching the new tenant, a 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport model. He smiled. He still hated the color, but he wouldn't dare change it for the world. He popped the door open, and slipped into the driver's seat. Once there, he took the frame and placed it on the dashboard, facing the picture out so that she could look at the shop she so loved, and they could see her too, and whoever looked at the car would know who first popped a wheel stand in it coming off the line at Doghouse. They would know who had hot-rodded that thing around Los Angeles, waking the dead with her pipes. They would know who had given Reid a new appreciation for fatherhood, and all they had to do was look to see who had given him the last second chance he would ever need. On his way back to the bays, Reid stopped by the front door where hanging next to Jeff's, was a plaque bearing Lucy's picture, as well as an epitaph and her birth and death dates.

Forever in our hearts:

Lucy Sanchez

Beloved daughter and friend

1997-2016

"Thanks, Lucy." Reid whispered, and turned to walk into the bays, pushing his way through the double doors. "Let's get busy!" He shouted gleefully as those swinging doors closed slowly behind him and what he did best.

~FIN~