A/N- Murphycat- Thanks! I'm glad the characters seem right to you. (: As for Taylor, I don't think he was necessarily nicer then, I think he just had less experience, both on the job and with Provenza.  Also, I'm not entirely clear about how much med. school Tao had. Some sources say one year, but I just recall him saying something non-specific. Idk

"Mike, can you clear some room on the table?" Kathy held a glass pan in a set of hot mitts.

Mike Tao looked up. "Yeah, sure. Sorry about that." He waved a hand over the mess of papers over their kitchen table. He was partway through his fellowship year as a traumatologist. The more time that passed, the more paperwork he seemed to generate. He reached across the table and gathered the multi-colored papers into stacks. There was mint green, lavender, blue, yellow, pink, and white.

"You've got a veritable rainbow there," Kathy said gently as she set plates and silverware down. Her long, black hair swung across her face as she leaned forward to slice lasagna. She had layered spinach, sausage, alfredo, ricotta, and noodles.

"It seems like everything I do equates to paperwork. One stitch is four pages. An x-ray? A solid half-hour of forms." He sighed tiredly. "I'm sorry. Work and home are separate." He set the stacks on the spare chairs and pushed his pens neatly to the side.

"It's fine," Kathy said. "I know it's hard to keep up." She took a bite of her lasagna.

"That's no reason for me to take it out here." He leaned over to Kathy and kissed her. She squeaked in surprise. He pulled back after a moment, and she reached up and swiped her thumb across his lip.

"You had some alfredo there," she said, grinning. He smiled back, and the conversation took a lighter turn. They talked about Kathy's day, her job at Eastside Elementary, teaching kindergarden. How there was a new kid, all the way from Wyoming.

It wasn't until hours later, when they were getting ready for bed, that Kathy came back to the original subject. "Mike, did you ever think about changing professions?" She began to pull her hair back in a French braid.

He spat out his toothpaste. "What?"

"Ever since you've been on the fellowship, you've had so much paperwork. Even in residency, you were telling me about how it seemed like doctors spent as much time covering their-" she paused. "Covering themselves as stabbing their friends in the back."

"Yeah." He picked the mouthwash up from the counter and took a mouthful. He swished it around, then bent over the sink and spat it out. "What were you thinking?"

"Emmy's father came in to pick her up. He's just joined the LAPD."

"The police?"

"Mmhmm." Kathy turned and walked out. "He was talking about how much he loved it. Said he had already met a bunch of great guys," she called from the bedroom.

Mike looked at himself in the mirror tiredly. Hell, he looked tired. He fingered his mustache slowly. Maybe it was time to give up the scalpel. He'd been working towards a medical career for years, but he'd never really, truly, enjoyed it. At first, it was to please his parents. Then he found pre-med classes to be legitimately interesting. It kept getting better after that, until he had enough responsibility to see his own patients and do his own paperwork. So far, he'd been lucky enough to make more friends than enemies. It seemed like the smarter you were, the more friends you had.

It was only a matter of time, though, before someone's knife made it past his armor and stabbed him in the back.

He turned towards the door. "Hey, Kathy?"

"Yeah?"

"Did Emmy's dad say if the LAPD was hiring?"

He heard a laugh. "I'm not Wikipedia, I can't keep giving out information for free."

He smiled to himself. "Well, what forms of payment do you accept? Visa, Mastercard?" he asked jokingly.

"Come here, and I'll show you."