Ivy's family was closer than most.

Perhaps that was because they'd been rocked by tragedy.

Ivy's therapist told her that there were two paths families tended to follow after a tragedy — they either drifted apart or became extremely close. Ivy's family followed the latter.

Her younger brother, Owen, despite being 26, still lived at home with their parents. Her younger sister, Naomi, who was 28 and just two years younger than Ivy, lived a block away from them in her own apartment, though Ivy knew she went over for dinner almost every day, often spending the night still.

Owen certainly didn't remember what had happened to their Aunt Helen. He didn't remember her much at all anyway. Naomi had some memories of the woman, but they were all positive. Ivy had been ten when Helen died, and she took the brunt of the psychological trauma so that her siblings wouldn't have to. Plus, she was ten, and at the time, she considered herself to be mature. Maybe it wasn't that Ivy had been mature at ten — maybe she'd just been forced to grow up early.

Helen's death had pushed the family together — her parents held on tightly to their children, in fear that something bad might happen to them, too. Ivy, however, pushed back unintentionally, finding herself distanced from the close-knit family both physically and emotionally. She'd always been different, of course, in how she managed and expressed her emotions, and her family could be suffocating. The only way she'd gotten the air to breathe was by moving across the country.

As she left work for the day, her mind drifted to the voicemail her brother left on her office phone. Ivy was half hoping that she would forget about the message, so that she would have a legitimate excuse not to return it. However, she rarely forgot anything, and if she didn't respond, she knew it would weigh on her mind until she did.

As she walked to her car, she sought out her brother's contact in her phone. They had sparse communication, a few text messages back and forth on each other's birthdays, and some of the memes Owen sent every once in a while.

"Hey, this reminded me of you," he'd send, along with a picture of a dog in a room of fire, with a speech bubble saying "This is fine," when things were clearly not fine. Ivy didn't see the correlation between herself and the meme. If anything, it reminded her of her sister. Naomi was a hot mess of a person that constantly forgot about things and rarely worried about anything. The sisters were quite opposites.

"I'd say that's more Naomi," she'd responded, and that had been the last communication with her brother, since he'd called her work number. She was shocked to look at the message and see that it'd been sent three months prior. Had it really been that long?

She typed out a quick message to him, asking if he needed anything. Her phone buzzed almost immediately after, indicating a response.

Incoming message from: Owen Auden

Do you have time for a call?

Ivy frowned. She did have time for a call, but she didn't really want to talk. Of course, it would be a good opportunity for her to tell her brother about her assignment in New York, as she would need to tell her family eventually. Owen was the easiest to talk with, and she knew any information she told him would speedily be relayed to the rest of the family.

She hit the call button, pressing the phone to her ear as she got into her car, locking the door behind her immediately. As far as parking structures went, the guarded FBI ones were probably the safest, but Ivy was still inherently paranoid.

Owen picked up after only one ring.

"Hi, Ivy," he said, and she could picture the easy going smile on his face. "It's been a while."

"It has," Ivy replied, clearing her throat. "Is something wrong?"

Owen laughed. "Does something have to be wrong for me to want to talk to my sister?"

"No," Ivy said. "But we don't talk very much."

Owen laughed again. "And whose fault is that, Ives?"

Ivy rolled her eyes. "Me, I know. What do you need?"

"I don't need anything, Ivy. I just wanted to talk to you," Owen said, and she could hear dishes banging together in the background.

"Are you at home?" Ivy asked. "Are Mom and Dad there?"

"Yeah, of course," Owen said, and she could hear her mom saying something inaudible in the background. "Actually, Mom wants to talk to you..."

Ivy groaned. "No, Owen, don't —"

"Well, if it isn't my Jivey Ivy!" Ivy's mother's voice clicked on as Ivy let out an annoyed sigh. She'd fallen victim to one of her brother's ill-timed schemes to get his sister to talk to their parents. "How are you doing, sweetie?"

"I'm fine," Ivy said through gritted teeth. "Can you put Owen back on the phone? I called to talk to him."

"Oh, it will just be a second, Ivy. He's helping me cut up onions for dinner right now anyway," Vivienne replied.

Vivienne Auden was a warm, welcoming woman that made everyone feel right at home as soon as they stepped foot in the Auden home. Ivy loved her mother, of course, but as with the rest of her family, she could be a bit stifling.

"Oh, okay," Ivy replied, setting the phone to the speaker setting as she clicked it into the dashboard holder she had in her car. She wasn't going to waste time sitting in the parking garage when she could be using the time to get home. She had to pack for New York still.

"What are you up to?" Vivienne asked.

"I just got out of work," Ivy replied. "I'm sitting in my car."

"In the parking garage? Why didn't you wait and call when you're home safe? I hope you're not planning on driving while talking —"

"No, Mom," Ivy lied, knowing if she told her mother the truth, she'd never hear the end of it.

"Is that my Ivy Bee?" Ivy's father's voice boomed in the background.

"It is," Vivienne replied. "Should I put her on speaker phone? Owen, how do I do that?"

Ivy groaned, rolling her eyes as she listened to the muffled sounds of the phone being passed back and forth as her two extremely intelligent parents attempted to figure out how to put Owen's phone on speaker.

Vivienne was a professor at UC Berkeley, and Richard was a cardiovascular surgeon. For some reason, however, neither were good at navigating an iPhone.

"Okay, Ivy, you're on speaker now," Vivienne said in a loud voice. "Can you hear us?"

"Loud and clear," Ivy replied.

"Mom, you don't have to shout," Owen said in the background. "Just talk normally, it will hear you."

"How are you doing, Ivy Bee?" Richard asked.

"I'm fine," she replied as she backed her car out of its spot.

"That's good," he said. "We haven't heard from you in a while."

"Yeah, I know, I've been busy," Ivy said.

"Busy solving crimes?" he asked.

"Yes, I actually —"

"Oh, did you hear your sister got a new job?" Vivienne interrupted. "No more of that paralegal stuff. She got a real job, as an associate at a firm in Oakland."

"Being a paralegal is a real job, Mom," Ivy replied.

"Oh I know, but it's not what Naomi wanted. You know she has plans to partner at her own firm one day," Vivienne said.

"Of course," Ivy replied.

Often, middle children were the forgotten children of families — parents doted on their first born or their youngest. That wasn't the case in the Auden family. Naomi was the golden child.

"But what about you, Ivy?" Owen asked. "How is your job?"

Owen was working on a fantasy graphic novel series about a superhuman crime sleuth, and he often pressed Ivy with questions for real world inspiration. She rarely indulged him, finding it insensitive to the victims of the cases she worked on, and their surviving loved ones.

"It's great," she said, continuing on before her mother could interrupt again. "I'm actually going to New York to work on a cold case there."

"Oh really?" Richard replied. "That's great! When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow," Ivy replied.

"Tomorrow?" Vivienne gasped. "That's so soon! Weren't you going to tell us?"

"Well, I just found out today," Ivy said.

"Oh dear, that's not very much time to pack," Vivienne replied. "Why did they give you such a short notice?"

"Well, there was an update in the case, Mom. Those kinds of things don't really happen with a lot of warning..."

"Hey, New York, that's pretty cool," Owen said. "Maybe Detective Dragoneus should take a trip out east... we could do a whole book on it. I'm thinking ... vampires ... Upper East Side. Oh, it's all coming together!"

Detective Maximillian Dragoneus was a half-human, half-dragon hybrid that lived in San Francisco solving crimes committed by other non-human residents in the Bay Area. Owen had started the series with a friend of his in college, and upon receiving moderate success on the endeavor, he now worked on it full time from the Auden family home.

Ivy had a stack of her brother's books on a shelf at her apartment, but beyond skimming a few pages of the first book, she hadn't read them. They weren't her cup of tea. Plus, everything Owen had learned about investigative procedures came from watching bad buddy cop movies, so the inaccuracies drove Ivy crazy.

As Ivy reached the interstate, her family continued to rattle on about their current activities, stopping sparingly to ask Ivy a question that she would answer with "fine," or "okay."

By the time she reached her exit, she was well-versed in Detective Dragoneus's past three cases, the syllabi for her mother's classes, and how many of her father's patients ignored his warnings about fast food.

Just as she pulled into her parking spot, she heard another voice appear on the phone call.

"Oh Ivy, sweetie, Naomi's here! Would you like to say hi?" Vivienne asked.

"Well, I need to get home and pack..." Ivy trailed off.

"Right, right. Another time then. Don't let us keep you!" Vivienne responded.

"Bye, Ivy Bee!" Richard called out, before being muffled by the sound of Vivienne attempting to hang up the call.

Ivy ended the call, letting out a loud groan as she slouched back into her seat. A conversation with her family might have been more exhausting than an entire day at work.

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

i just updated this book, but i LITERALLY couldn't help myself. i love it sm and just want to publish everything as soon as i write it lol.

who is your favorite b99 character? mine is jake, obvi, but if i had to pick a second, i would say my favorite is captain holt. i also love gina. 

thanks for reading! 

xx,

madi