Sun rays streamed through the obscenely large windows in Ivy's new bedroom, awaking her alongside the roaring beep of her morning alarm.

She sat up quickly, reaching for her phone to disable the shrieking. She looked at the time, seeing that it was indeed six a.m., and for the first time in over a decade, Ivy Auden had woken up with her alarm clock.

Had she really slept through the entire night, without a single nightmare? She'd have to be sure and tell her therapist.

Dr. Taft!

Ivy checked her email, seeing if the woman had responded. Sure enough, she had, and they were still set for their weekly session, though virtually.

She supposed that her overly-exhausted physical and mental state, along with the dreamy comfort of the new bed, had lulled her to such a deep sleep that even her subconscious horrors couldn't peek their way through her slumber. For her first night in New York, it was certainly a surprise. She didn't often do well in new places, as far as sleeping went. Even when she went back home to San Francisco, which happened sparingly, it took her sleep habits a night or two to adjust.

She hopped out of bed, secretly excited to try out the new shower she'd seen in the connecting master bathroom of her room. There were six jets on the tiled wall that she could count. What did one even do with that many jets in the shower?

Ivy picked out yet another pantsuit, this one made of a deep burgundy material, and headed for the shower, where she allowed herself to soak under the steaming rays of water, as she always did. Setting the water temperature to the point of almost scalding was as much a part of her morning routine as her coffee and bagels were. Upon thinking of her breakfast, Ivy groaned, realizing that the apartment didn't have any food in it, besides her Korean leftovers. She knew she'd have to go grocery shopping eventually, but in the meantime, she'd grab a coffee and a bagel on her way to the precinct. After all, New York was known for its bagels, was it not?

After exiting the shower, she combed her hair and skimmed over her morning messages, seeing that she had a few emails regarding cases back in D.C. It brought her a slight form of satisfaction as she forwarded them off to Geoff and Anna, knowing that she didn't have to deal with them. All she had to do was worry about the New York case.

She gathered the case files, which were neatly stacked on her coffee table, where she'd left them the previous night, and stuffed them into her briefcase. No groceries meant no lunch, so another hot dog from the precinct-adjacent stand would have to do. Good thing the bureau was paying for her food expenses while she was in Brooklyn.

Ivy left her apartment, searching for a bagel shop on her phone as she waited for the elevator. She found one, not far away from the precinct, and hailed a cab as soon as she got outside, having the cabbie drive her there. She ordered a large coffee and a bagel, then headed for the precinct, looking down at her watch to see that it was only seven thirty, and she still had a half hour before her working time at the nine-nine was set to begin.

She took the elevator up to the sixth floor, surprised to see that the lights were already on in the bullpen. It was vacant, except for Captain Holt, who was in his office. She took a sip of her coffee before setting her things down on the desk and going to greet the captain.

"Good morning, Agent Auden," Captain Holt greeted her. "How was your first night in New York?"

"It was great, thank you," she said, giving him a polite smile.

He nodded. "Glad to hear it. If I can be of any help to you during your time here, please let me know."

"Will do. Thank you, sir," Ivy said before retreating back to her desk. She logged onto her computer, minorly frustrated as she saw how outdated it was. It certainly hadn't had a software update in over a year, and she yearned for her Mac back at Quantico. Even her laptop would have been better than this.

Soon enough, the rest of the nine-nine began to trickle in, and the bullpen became the raucous environment she'd been greeted with yesterday. Captain Holt called his morning meeting, and everyone moved to the meeting room.

"Now that Agent Auden has joined us, I would like our priority to be on the Houston case," Holt said. "Strictly, however, to Boyle and Peralta. The rest of you will continue on with your normal priorities."

He continued on with assignments for the rest of the crew, asking for updates when needed, and then dismissed them. Ivy headed back to her desk, along with Peralta and Boyle.

"We should head to the pawn shop today," Ivy said, taking a seat at her desk.

The victim's pearl necklace, the new source of evidence, had shown up at a pawn shop in Queens after the anonymous caller alerted the FBI to its whereabouts. The owner of the pawn shop was holding it for the NYPD, but they needed to go collect it. The owner had yet to be interviewed, so that also needed to be done. It was the first step to solving the case. Ivy could practically feel the puzzle coming together in her mind. She just needed to talk to the pawn shop owner. She could feel it.

"I think that's a good idea," Jake said, nodding in agreement.

"Oh, this is exciting!" Charles said, smiling. "Is this our first outing as C-Cubed?" He pulled his hat out of his pocket, placing it on his head.

"Charles, I'm not wearing that in public," Jake said, grimacing.

Boyle turned to Ivy, as if looking for help.

"I'm sorry, I don't think it's wise," she said, agreeing with Jake. She'd shoved her own hat into a desk drawer as soon as Charles had given it to her, and it'd remained untouched there since.

"You're probably right," Boyle said, taking off his hat. "We're going to Queens, afterall. You know how they can be there."

Ivy didn't know how people could be there, but she didn't ask.

"Well, I already looked up the pawn shop's hours, and they open soon, so we should get going," she said, standing.

Boyle and Peralta stood as well, the latter grabbing a set of keys off of his desk.

"Oooh, shotgun!" Boyle said, nudging Ivy with his elbow. "You don't mind, do you, Agent Auden?"

Ivy resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Not at all."

She didn't mind sitting in the backseat, but she was beginning to mind the childish antics exhibited by both Detective Boyle and Detective Peralta.

Ivy grabbed her things and followed the detectives to Peralta's car, removing her NYPD guest badge.

"What kind of tunes do we want?" Peralta asked as he started the car.

"I think we should let Agent Auden pick," Boyle said, turning around in his seat to smile at Ivy. "Guest's choice."

"Oh, I don't care," Ivy replied.

"Come on! What's your favorite kind of music?" Charles insisted.

"I don't really listen to music," Ivy admitted, buckling her seatbelt.

Charles' jaw dropped, and Jake turned around as well.

"What do you mean, you don't listen to music? What do you listen to in the car? The deafening silence of your overactive brain?" Jake asked. "Oh wait, maybe that's just me."

Ivy shrugged. "I listen to NPR."

"Public radio?" Charles shook his head. "No no, this will not do."

Ivy sighed. "Just turn on anything. It doesn't matter. We need to get to the pawn shop."

The detectives turned back around as Jake backed the car out of its parking spot. Charles spent the better half of the drive messing with the radio, trying to expose Ivy to as many different genres of music as he could during their drive to Queens.

Ivy didn't have the heart to tell him that she was already well-informed about the different kinds of music, she just didn't like to listen to it. Music allowed the brain to wander. It allowed her to think about things she didn't necessarily want to think about. With NPR, it was different. Her brain was consumed by the person speaking. It had to listen and process the information. It kept her brain from going down paths she didn't want to follow.

They arrived at the pawn shop, which was a dingy building sandwiched in between a laundromat and a bodega. Two lights on the neon sign that hung above the door didn't work, so at night, it would most likely read "P  n Shop." The paint on the concrete walls was peeling, and as they got out of the car, the scent of human urine hit Ivy's nose.

"Welcome to Queens," Jake said as he got out of the car. "It's not all like this, actually. I shouldn't say that. There are actually some really great parts of Queens. This part, maybe not."

There were bars on the windows of the pawn shop, and as they headed inside, they had to be buzzed in through a separate entry room.

A large, bald, white man greeted them from behind the counter. He was covered in tattoos and was smoking a cigarette, despite smoking being prohibited at indoor public places in the city.

He dumped the cigarette butt into an ashtray as the detectives and Ivy entered. He crossed his arms over his chest as he eyed Jake and Charles' NYPD badges, his eyes flitting back to Ivy as well.

"Can I help you?" he asked in a gruff voice.

"I'm Agent Auden of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," she said, pulling out her badge and showing it to him. "This is Detective Peralta and Detective Boyle, of the NYPD's ninety-ninth precinct.

"Frank Galeotti. How can I help you, detectives?" The man, Frank, replied.

"We're here about the pearl necklace," Jake said.

The pawn shop employee grunted as he pulled himself off of the stool he was sitting on, and moved to the back of the counter. He pulled out a slender black box and slid it across the counter to Ivy.

"There it is," he said, sitting back down and crossing his arms again.

Charles pulled out a set of gloves and an evidence bag, inspecting the pearls before slipping them into an evidence bag.

"What can you tell us about the pearls, Mr. Galeotti?" Ivy asked, pulling a notepad out of her pocket.

Frank shrugged. "Not much. Some homeless guy off the street came in and sold it to me for two hundred bucks."

"Did you happen to get his name?" Jake asked.

He nodded. "No, I don't ask questions like that. Not like you'd find him anyway. This neighborhood is crawling with guys like him."

"Did he say how he came into possession of the necklace?" Ivy asked.

"Yeah, some guy tossed him a bag when he was on the street. Said it had a bunch of garbage in it, and then the jewelry at the bottom."

"Did he get a good look at the man?" Charles asked.

"How am I supposed to know? Listen, I don't ask questions, okay? People bring in their stuff, I give 'em a number, and they either sell it to me or they don't," Frank said, his voice getting louder.

"Thank you, Mr. Galeotti," Ivy said, glancing back at Charles before turning back to Frank. "The man that brought in the pearls. How old did he look?"

"Young," Frank said, glaring at Charles before turning his attention back to Ivy. "Probably a runaway. Twenty, maybe?"

Ivy jotted down the description, circling the number twenty with her pen. If he was as young as Frank said, then the homeless man couldn't be a suspect. He would have been a child at the time of the murder, if he was even born.

"Was there anything else that came in with the necklace?" Ivy asked.

"Yeah," Frank said, taking a deep breath as he stepped off his stool again. He walked over to another display case, pulling something out. "This gold locket. I gave him fifty for it. It's nothing special. He said it was in the bag with the pearls."

He set the locket on the counter, and Charles reached a gloved hand towards it, ready to put it in a separate bag.

"I don't suppose I'm getting any compensation for that," the man said, nodding towards the jewelry.

"We'll see what we can do," Jake said.

Charles set the evidence bag with the locket down on the counter, and the glint of gold caught Ivy's eye. She looked at it through the bag, studying the intricate design on the tiny heart. There was a flower engraved on the front, a daisy, it looked like. She turned the bag over, the hair on the back of her neck standing up as she studied the engraving on the back.

H. G. A.

Ivy suddenly felt dizzy. Her stomach twisted into a pile of nausea, and her heart began to race. Her forehead broke out in a sweat as she let out a gasp. She suddenly could not catch her breath. Her hands turned clammy and she clamped them down on the hem of her blazer, trying to prevent them from shaking.

She'd been having panic attacks since she was ten years old. With medicine and therapy, she rarely had them now as an adult, but she still recognized all of the symptoms.

"Agent Auden, are you okay?"

Jake's voice was distant, barely breaking through the fog in her head.

"Agent Auden?"

She barely felt the brush of Charles' hand as he tapped her arm.

"I have to go outside," she gasped, her chest rising and falling quickly. "Excuse me."

She found her way out of the store and rested against the wall, her eyes unable to focus on anything on the street.

H. G. A.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ author's note ✫・゜・。.

into the thick of it!

remember that tiktok trend? of the backyardigans? good times.

we are indeed getting into the thick of it, and i'm very excited for you all to see what's coming.

thoughts so far?

xx,
madi