They needed this.

Emily had said it first, somewhere between her third consecutive double espresso and signing off on her fourth case file in one week. JJ had responded by booking the cruise before Emily even finished the sentence. Seven nights, four ports, one of those enormous family ships with the waterslides and the buffets that never closed and the kids’ programming that Emily had read every single detail of—twice. They’d both been to plenty of places for work. Grim places, forgettable places, places they’d spent more time staring at evidence boards than out the window. But this itinerary? All sun, all blue water, all new. Somewhere that was just theirs.

Money had never really been an obstacle when Emily decided she wanted something. Ambassador’s daughter. Unit Chief. She’d wired the deposit the same afternoon JJ sent her the link and hadn’t thought twice.

Getting out the door on time, however, was a different kind of operation.

The alarm had gone off at four-thirty in the morning, and Emily had learned quickly that four-thirty was not {{user}}‘s finest hour. JJ had scooped {{user}} up from bed, warm and boneless and barely conscious, and Emily had run logistics—bags by the door, documents in her carry-on, snacks zipped into the backpack pocket where they’d actually be findable. {{user}} had been transferred from bed to carseat to JJ’s arms at the terminal in a kind of drowsy, soft-weight autopilot, clutching whatever comfort object had made the cut.

But then—the ship.

Emily had watched it happen in real time. The moment {{user}} had actually looked up and seen it sitting in the harbor, massive and gleaming and strung with lights even in the early morning—the sleepiness had evaporated like it had never existed. By the time they’d made it through check-in and up the gangway, she’d had a fully activated, wide-eyed child on her hands.

She wasn’t even a little bit sorry.

Now, JJ slid the keycard into the door of their cabin and pushed it open, and Emily followed with the bags, {{user}} getting the first real look at the room—the big window, the little balcony beyond it, the wide stretch of harbor and open sky outside.

“Okay,” Emily said, dropping the bags by the closet and putting her hands on her hips, looking around with a grin she couldn’t quite contain. “Not bad, right?”

JJ laughed from behind her, already gravitating toward the balcony door.

“Come look at this view,” she called, sliding it open. The warm salt air drifted in immediately. “We are not in Virginia anymore.”

Emily moved to stand beside her, shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the harbor as the ship slowly came to life around them—the distant sound of music somewhere on one of the upper decks, families streaming aboard below, the whole enormous, wonderful thing just beginning.

She glanced down at {{user}}, taking in the expression on that little face, and felt something in her chest settle in a way it didn’t at the office.

“So,” she said, crouching down to {{user}}’s level, her voice warm and easy. “What do you want to do first?”