The Bouquet
By Rrain Prior


The flowers first showed up on Glenda Garrison's desk, down in 
records.  Six red roses and one peach, right in the centre of the 
rest.  She sighed as she held them for a moment, then looked at the 
card and frowned.

"What's wrong?" asked Morris, peering at her through slitted eyes from 
behind a precariously stacked cabinet.

"Not for me," she said shortly, tucking the card back inside.  "To B, 
from J.  Who do you think B is?"

He shrugged, his shoulder barely visible above the stack of folders.  
"Maybe Brenda, in the cafeteria?"

"You think?" she remarked with a skeptical quirk of her eyebrow.  
"Well, I may as well check.  I'll be right back."

"Good luck," he called after her as she left the room, flowers in 
hand, and headed up the stairs to the cafeteria.  

"Hey, Al," she said to the man mopping up a spill near the doorway, 
"Is Brenda working today?"

He gestured his chin towards the kitchen, resting both hands on the 
top of his mop.  "She's in there.  What, you got her flowers?"

"No, no," laughed Glenda.  "These were delivered to me by mistake.  
They might be hers."  He shrugged at the explanation and turned back 
to the spill as she slipped through the kitchen door into the steamy 
room.

"Whoever you are, outta my kitchen," growled a male voice from nearby.

"Sorry," she said quickly.  "I was just delivering these flowers for 
Brenda, uh, Downey."  

A man stepped closer and took the flowers from her carefully.  "I'll 
give them to her," he said brusquely.  "You just head on back to 
wherever you came from."  As Glenda eagerly complied, he looked around 
the kitchen nervously then took a deep sniff of the roses before 
heading to the back cooler to give them to their intended recipient.

"Hey Downey, you got roses," he said, leaning against the white 
concrete wall.

"Flowers?" she repeated, poking her head out.  "Who would get me 
flowers?"

"I dunno.  Someone just brought 'em up, said they'd been given to her 
by mistake."  He held them out to her awkwardly, looking away as she 
did so.

"Well, who are the from?" she asked, more to herself than to him as 
she dug the card out.  "J?  I don't know anyone with the initial J.  I 
don't think these are for me..."

"Well, do with them what you will," he said, walking back over to the 
soup he was preparing.  "Don't know who they'd be for if they aren't 
for you."

"B...B..." she mused.  "Maybe they're for Billie Mendoza.  You know, 
up in Robbery."

"I s'pose you want me to take them up there for you."

"Would you, John?  I really need to finish up here."

He grumbled something under his breath but was soon wiping his hands 
off on his apron and pulling it off over his head.  "All right, all 
right," he said.  "You just mind my soup."

"I will," she promised, ducking back into the cooler as he left the 
room.

He continued to mutter to himself as he ascended the stairs, flowers 
securely in hand once again.  He pushed open the door to Robbery with 
a finesse usually reserved for large mammals and football players.  
"Is there a Billie Mendoza here?"

"I'm Mendoza," said a petite brunette, standing up and approaching 
him.

"Good," he said, thrusting the flowers out in front of him.  "These 
are for you."  Taking advantage of her momentary startlement, John 
left as soon as she took the roses from him.

"Hey Mendoza," called out a colleague good-naturedly.  "You got a 
secret admirer?"

"Bite me, Rawlins," she said, holding up her ring finger to him.  "I'm 
married, you putz.  And these *can't* be for me."  No sooner had she 
gotten the words out of her mouth than she sneezed.  Messily.  "David 
knows that I'm allergic to flowers."

"Maybe they're for someone else," suggested Rawlins.  "Here, let me 
check the card."  She happily surrendered the flowers to him.  "To B, 
from J.  Well, there've gotta be more B's in the building."

"Like Bernadette McMaster," offered Chan from the other side of the 
room.  "Doesn't she have a new boyfriend named Jason something?"

"Hey, that's right," said Mendoza, snapping her fingers.  "I bet these 
are for her.  Rawlins, would you mind...?"

"Anything for my lady on Valentine's Day," he said with a mock bow.

The finger she held up to him as he headed off to Computer Crimes was 
definitely not her ring finger.

He waited for the elevator impatiently, taking it to the top floor to 
track down the owner of the flowers.  As he ascended, he chanced a 
brief sniff of the flowers and made a mental note to pick some up for 
his fiancee before he showed up at her apartment after his shift.

"Bernadette," he called out, spotting the blonde as soon as he stepped 
out into the hallway.  "Hey, Bernie!"

She turned and grinned when she saw who it was,  "Hey, Nate," she said 
congenially.  "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me 
Bernie?"

"More than you have...Bernie," he replied incorrigibly.

She spotted the flowers in his hands.  "Those for me?"

"Maybe," he said, catching up to her and walking alongside as she made 
her way back to her desk.  "Actually, we aren't sure *who* they're 
for.  All the card says is 'To B, from J'."

She frowned.  "Can't be for me.  Jason already sent me a gorgeous 
bouquet."  A goofy smile crossing her face, she fingered the petals of 
one of her own red roses.

"Well then who?" he asked, clearly baffled.

Bernadette sat down and pondered that for a moment.  "Isn't the new 
clerk down in Major Crime named Bambi or something atrocious like 
that?"

"Bebe," corrected Rawlins.  "You're right, it could be her.  Guess 
that's my next stop."

"Nonsense," said Bernadette, standing back up.  "I'll take them down 
to her.  You can go back to what you were doing."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure," she assured him with a casual wave of her 
hand.  "I can't seem to sit still today anyway; we're on the verge of 
cracking a big one and I'm getting all restless."  She took the 
flowers from him with a bit of a wistful sigh and waved him off again.

"Thanks, Bernie," he said with a grin.  "And, uh, Happy Valentine's 
Day."

"You too, Nate, you too."

She took the stairs two at a time on her way back down, pushing open 
the door to the stairwell with her back and almost plowing right into 
Detective Jim Ellison as she emerged into the corridor near Major 
Crime.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she exclaimed breathlessly.

"No harm done," said Jim, then spotted the flowers.  "Oh hey, they're 
here," he said with a pleased smile.  "I can deliver these myself."

"They're yours?"  she said, clearly surprised.

"I know it's not my style," he admitted, "but it's a special day."

"Oh, it's not that," she said quickly, "it's just that I never though 
that you and..."

Jim grinned at her a little sheepishly.  "Read the card, did you? 
Well, sometimes these things just creep up on you."

"You can't have been together long," she went on.

"No, no, not long at all," he said, opening the door to the Major 
Crime bullpen.  "It's our first Valentine's Day together and I wanted 
it to be special."

As she stepped in behind him, she spotted the new, redheaded clerk 
watching them from the corner of the room and gave her an encouraging 
smile and a wink.

"Thanks for bringing them up," said Jim.  "I know you must have a lot 
of other things to do."

"Oh, it was no trouble at all," she assured him.  A puzzled look 
crossed her face as Jim headed, not for the corner of the room where 
Bebe still watched them, but towards his own desk.

"Hey Chief," he said, leaning down and planting a kiss on his 
partner's cheek.  "Happy Valentine's Day."  He handed Blair the 
flowers amid a crowd of grinning Major Crime detectives and one very 
startled computer expert.  "Love you," he added in a whisper.

"Love you too, man," said Blair, accepting the flowers with a glowing 
smile on his face.  "Love you too."

THE END