Blair had been working at the call center for two months. She hadn't quite found her groove, still struggling after tough calls—how couldn't she? Hearing the line go dead, listening to someone say their last words, take their last breath; it wasn't something she could just move on from.

She had been learning to live with it though, with every bad call, there was always a good one that she could take home. Except, when she got home, she was alone with those calls. The good and the bad.

It had been months since she had moved to Los Angeles yet the closest person she had to a friend was Maddie and they had only talked at work. Sometimes she would call her friends from back home, but they had all been busy in college. Her apartment was beginning to feel like a void of self pity.

She didn't regret leaving home though, the quiet of her apartment was far better than the quiet of her childhood home. A home that still had an occupant whom wanted nothing to do with her.

The quiet was always disrupted the second she walked into the call center. In a weird way, work was becoming her comfort station.

Before she could even clock in, Blair was drawn to the news channel that had Maddie and Josh hooked. She stood behind them, realizing that today was not going to be a regular day.

"A treasure hunt? You've gotta be kidding." Blair grumbled, startling Maddie who hadn't heard her come in.

"5 million dollars." Maddie responded with a knowing eye roll. "I hope you're ready to take some idiotic calls." She widened her eyes to Blair who took a long sip of her coffee.

"Do you actually think theres 5 million in there?" Josh asked, shaking his head in disbelief as he had already taken some odd calls that morning.

"Maybe? Either way, people are greedy." Blair responded, circling back towards the door.

"You've got that right."

—

"I just took a call with two guys dueling using metal detectors." Blair laughed as Maddie sat beside her, "I mean, tell me you're delusional." She hadn't known they'd been fighting with the detectors until LAFD told her, which she had unintentionally laughed about over the channel—the firefighters laughed too.

"They're just looking in all the wrong places." Maddie mumbled, causing Blairs eyebrows to raise in question.

"You don't actually believe the money's real.. do you?" Blair asked, not convinced that someone actually burried treasure.

"It's nice to dream, right?" Maddie nudged the girls leg and Blair shrugged. "You're telling me you're not the slightest bit interested in 5 million?"

"Not really. I mean, even if I did, I wouldn't know where to look. It's like this riddle is unsolvable, I've taken calls from every possible place and no one has found it?"

"They're thinking with greed. Not working together to find it." Maddie had a look, something that told Blair she was genuinely interested.

Blair didn't know why she caved, but she did.

"We should look together." Blair whispered, watching as Maddie grinned. "Unless you and Chim already—"

"Chim is too busy working in all the wrong places." Maddie quickly said, "I think a little bit of girl power and we can do it."

Before she knew it, Blair had a map in front of her, accompanied by a clipboard with every spot she, Maddie and Josh thought it could be. Except with every call, she was crossing a location off her list. Maddie would occasionally walk by, tallying off another location.

"I'm starting rethink this. I seriously don't believe—"

"Hollis is alive?" Maddie shook her head in disappointment as they sat in the breakroom.

"So I was right. Theres no—"

"There's still a treasure." Maddie assured, typing away with concentration. "You're off soon, right?" She asked suddenly, and Blair nodded hesitantly.

"Do you know something I don't?" Blair asked quietly, despite them being alone in the room.

"Yeah, Chims location." She waved her phone, standing up quickly.

"Hijack his hunt?" Blair grinned, more interested in making friends than finding a fake treasure.

Fifteen minutes later and they were at the Glendale Narrows. With Maddie being pregnant, Blair didn't hesitate to go into the riverside. It was dark and she was convinced Chim had still been searching in the wrong spots.

"If I knew I would be digging in mud I would've warn different shoes!" Blair shouted, Maddie leaning against the rail to watch her every move.

"Yeah, converse aren't exactly the best treasure hunt shoes." Blair froze when she realized she hadn't been alone in the mud. Noticing the man peaking out from behind the brush, waving with a shovel in his hand.

"No fucking way—I climbed down here for someone else to already be here?" Blair let out a dramatic groan, hearing several voices join Maddie from up top.

"If you help me dig, we can share?" He nodded to her small shovel that she and Maddie had borrowed.

"Screw it, I'm already here." Blair sighed, stumbling towards the man as her feet stuck to the mud.

"I'm Ravi, by the way." He held out his hand for support and she accepted, letting him guide her beneath the willow tree.

"Blair! The vultures are here!" Maddie shouted from the top and suddenly, the two had several flashlights pointed on them.

"Dig, hurry!" Blair quickly stuck her shovel into the soft ground and they began to dig, their shovels soon hitting the hard of the box.

"Probie!" They were startled as lights shined down on them, Ravi bringing the box out with excitement.

"Guys! I found it!" Ravi shouted, obviously knowing the group up top. "Its not as heavy as I thought." He told Blair and she could feel her heart sink. She was right.

"It's.." she watched closely as he opened it, "empty?"

"You've gotta be kidding me!"

"Guys, get up here!" Ravi dropped the empty box and they made their way back to the bridge. Blair was pissed, someone risked thousands of lives for their own enjoyment.

"Is she with you?" One of the guys asked Ravi, decked in gear that she could assume was from the fire department.

"No, uh, actually I don't know her." Ravi answered, not questioning who the blonde was.

"She's with me." Maddie stated, reaching out for Blair who had a frown stuck to her face.

"I think we ought to pay a visit to Hollis."

When they got to Hollis' they didn't have to be invited. The group of ten bursting through the open gate with a plan of vengeance. Except when they arrived to the door, it seemed someone had beat them to it.

"This can't be a good sign." Buck, who Blair had finally been formally introduced to, stated.

"I'm gonna go in and check it out, you all wait here." Athena, who Blair knew from calls, demanded as she brought out her gun. The woman was as bad ass in person as she was over a radio.

"You're not going in there alone." Bobby argued and Athena gave him a look that everyone could understand.

"Do any of you have a badge, and a gun?" The woman asked and they all shook their heads. "Didn't think so. Wait here." She repeated before walking into the house.

They didn't wait long to follow, but the minute Bobby went after her—they weren't far behind. When they turned the hall, they could see Athena over Hollis, checking for a pulse that wasn't there.

"Oh, my god. Is he dead?" Ravi asked, and Athena nodded affirmatively.

"I bet the assistant did it." Blair stated, Buck humming in agreement as Athena glared in their direction.

"Didn't I say to wait outside? Why do you people never listen?" And Blair knew this wasn't the first time they'd been stuck in something like this. She was the one intruding, acting as if they actually cared about her being there.

"Blair?" Ravi nudged her arm, the blonde smiling away her pain as she turned to him.

"I'm just gonna step outside." She mumbled, wanting to be as far from the dead body as possible. She felt sick from her own thoughts, too much coming in at once.

"Hey, are you sure you're okay?" Ravi asked, following quickly behind her when he noticed her uneasy body language. "Let's just sit on the steps until the detectives come." Blair felt his hands around her, bringing her to sit as her body failed her.

"I, um—" she wiped a tear as it fell, "I'm sorry." Blair breathed in slowly gathering her breaths until she let out a defeated laugh.

"You have nothing to be sorry for." Ravi assured her, "you work at the call center, right?" He asked, and Blair nodded, bringing her knees up to her chest as her exhaustion settled.

"Then you don't really see a lot of.. that. So it's a normal reaction to seeing that for the first time." She knew he was only trying to comfort her, but every image in her mind was a horrible replay of her father's dead body beside her.

"You're right." Blair let out a sigh, giving him a reassuring smile as Buck and Maddie walked out.

"Blair, I totally think you're right on the assistant." Buck called out to her and the younger grinned, living out her detective dreams for the night.

"By the way, who was it that said the Q word on my first day?" Blair asked, knowing it had been a probie from the 118. Then, she thought about it as she asked, realizing what Buck had called Ravi earlier and noticed his eyes going wide.

"Look to your left." Buck responded, nodding to Ravi who seemed all too embarrassed.

"You're the reason my first day was insane?" Blair questioned the man beside her and she couldn't tell the answer by the look of shame across his face.

"To be fair, no one warned me about a curse." Ravi defended himself, glancing back at Buck.

"There's no such thing as curses." Eddie stated as he walked outside, the rest following him.

"You sure of that?" Blair asked, earning a prolonged groan from Buck.

"There's no such thing as curses." He stated with a subtle annoyance for the topic and she knew to leave it be.

"Hey, Blair, is that a southern accent?" Buck asked quickly, making his way towards her.

"Yeah, I'm from Oklahoma." She responded, her cheeks flaring up, knowing her accent peaked when she was stressed.

"Oklahoma?" Hen asked, sounding surprised by her answer.

"Needed something different." Blair answered, staying seated as the detectives and ME's showed up.

The detective walked over to them, a face of disappointment, Athena clearly having told him what happened.

"So, you all found an empty treasure chest, drove down here like an angry mob to confront him and now hes dead?" He asked, seemingly in disbelief. "But these facts are unrelated to each other?" Hopefully they had enough evidence to find the real killer.

Blair was not made for prison.

"Rick, he was dead when we got here." Athena assured him, and he sighed, still not buying it.

"We didn't kill him."

"We just wanted to."

"Buck." Blair and Ravi grumbled at the same time, drawing the detectives attention.

"You two are new." Romero stated, raising a brow at the two he hadn't met with before.

"I'm not really with them." Ravi answered quickly, not knowing what trouble the 118 may have caused.

"I met these guys an hour ago." Blair stated as another detective walked up with an ipad. She sighed with relief when she realized it was security footage to prove their innocence.

"Is it the assistant?" Blair asked, and Hen shook her head slowly.

"Delivery driver? At this time of night?" Chimney stared at the footage in confusion.

"Is she.. pregnant?" And Blair knew she was wrong, she had taken the call, saw the wife on the news.

"You were both wrong." Maddie said, teasing Buck and Blair who were in disbelief.

"I kinda thought it was the assistant, too." Ravi confessed, earning a soft smile from Blair.

"Sure you did, probie." Buck slapped his shoulder, leaving him alone with Blair. She watched them leave, all going on with their night as if nothing happened.

"Do you want a ride home?" Ravi offered, his mind going back to her panic. He could tell something wasn't okay, her eyes looked sad despite the stained smile on her face.

"If you don't mind? It would totally save me an uber." She held up her phone, the percentage below ten after her twelve hour shift. Typically Blair wouldn't trust someone she met at the bottom of a canal but Ravi seemed trustworthy enough. Plus, she was exhausted.

"Yeah, I don't mind."

—

Blair had been so tired she forgot to ask Ravi his number. She got in his car and nearly passed out in the passenger seat until he told her they'd arrived. To be fair, Ravi hadn't asked for her number either, but maybe she'd ruined that chance by falling asleep.

When she got up the next morning, she almost wished she had a shift to distract herself. She had managed to clean her entire apartment by nine, running out of things to keep her occupied. She ended up getting ready to take herself shopping.

Blair was locking her door when she heard someone else doing the same down the hall. She didn't think anything of it, never really cared to introduce herself to her neighbors.

"I knew you looked familiar!" Blair turned in surprise to see Buck walking towards her. "I couldn't quite place it last night but I guess now I know." Buck said, a permanent smile on his face that Blair envied.

"Buck? You going to work?" She asked him, walking towards the elevator with him and he shook his head.

"Nah, I was getting bored sitting around." He answered with a shrug and Blair let out a laugh.

"Same, I actually decided that shopping was my best option." She told him, guilty of retail therapy rather than what she needed.

"Have you had breakfast yet?" Buck asked, earning a raised brow from the girl as she pressed the elevator button.

"I didn't really think to eat." She responded with a shrug, stepping into the elevator as it opened and Buck followed.

"There's a cafe down the street, I was gonna head down there if you want to join." Buck said, pressing the button to take them down to the lobby.

"I could go for a coffee." Blair mumbled, clutching the rails as they went down.

"I saw probie took you home. Did he keep his hands to himself?" Buck asked, the doors opening up and she followed him into the lobby.

"I was so exhausted from the shift and the treasure hunt.. I fell asleep." She admitted, and Buck laughed making her only more embarrassed. "I didn't even get his number." Blair said as they got outside, Buck leading them to the cafe.

"So, he drove you home, you fell asleep in his car and now you're afraid you'll never see him again?" Buck spoked with a smirk, making Blair question his thoughts.

"I can get you his number." He said confidently.

"You will?" She asked, surprised he would help her when they barely knew each other. Though, to Blair, Buck felt like someone she had known, something so familiar.

"Course." He nudged his elbow against her and she smiled, thankful she had left when she did.

"Was the metal detector duel as hilarious in person as it was over call?" Blair asked, knowing he had taken the call.

"I wish I recorded it, it was absolutely hilarious." Buck laughed at the thought of it, "you took the 911 call for that?"

"Yeah, I was trying to hold it together the whole time." She responded with a laugh of her own, stopping as they hit the crosswalk.

"If only all the calls were that easy." Buck mumbled, and Blair understood immediately, maybe not exactly what he meant but she had taken tough calls.

"We save who we can. Sometimes.. there's nothing you can do." There was nothing she could do.

"A guy a few years ago, I couldn't get him to take my hand. He fell off the top of the Ferris wheel." Buck told her, never able to fully forget that call. It was his first loss, and it wasn't bad.

"I-uh, we can cross now." Blair moved quick, chewing at the insides of her cheeks. The crosswalk felt forever, Buck tailing after her until they reached the sidewalk and he was at her side.

"You okay?" Buck asked, grabbing her arm to stop her as they reached the cafe.

"I'm fine." Blair responded, heading up the steps to the colorful business. She was comforted by the smell of baked goods and coffee as she walked inside.

Blair ordered, Buck going after her as she insisted on paying separately. She had taken a seat beside the window, Buck coming over to sit across from her. Blair knew he was questioning her, but she didn't know how to answer him.

"Can I ask why you moved so far from home?" Buck asked her, sipping nervously on his drink as her breath shook.

"I needed something for myself. I want a purpose, and my-my dad always wanted to visit Los Angeles." She hadn't spoken about him in years, every time she tried, it came out like a curse.

"Is he.."

"He died when I was twelve." She confessed, taking a drink from her coffee m in attempts to keep her calm. "He crashed and died on impact." Buck didn't have to know she was in the car. That her father was only driving because she was too scared to sleep at her friends house.

"I'm so sorry, Blair." Buck didn't know what to say and she understood. No one really did.

"And safe to say I'm my mothers least favorite only child." Now she was beginning to wish she had something stronger than coffee. She didn't know why she was telling him this, she barely knew him. Yet she couldn't stop the words from leaving her mouth.

"Some people are just not meant to parents." Buck responded and a part of her knew he was speaking from experience.

"I'll drink to that." Blair sipped her coffee, gazing out the window in hopes she could think of anything else to talk about. "Mm, I heard you're dating that reporter? Taylor Kelly?" She questioned, not typically having a fondness for reporters like her.

"Yeah, shes.. great." Buck sighed contently and her nose scrunched. "Whats the face?" He asked, raising a brow at her disapproving expression.

"I just don't trust reporters." She shrugged, "she makes you happy though, right?"

"Yeah, she does."