​​​​​​Mercedes speaks low, unsure if Conn can hear her through his grief. She keeps her hands atop his, squeezing them so that he doesn't feel so alone in his crushing grief. She'd had no idea what he'd been through.

"I'm not one to judge, Conn. I've done deplorable things myself. Sometimes it's hard to look at myself in the mirror. You're no monster, though. Everything you've done, been asked to do, it was for a reason. And somehow, you manage to come back from that as, well, Conn. The exuberant, fun loving man I've come to know. You don't seem to be losing pieces of yourself, like the rest of us..." she says, a bit sadly. But then she remembers a flyer that her boss Mavis had handed her earlier that day. For just one moment, she was more like Conn than Mercedes.

"Hey! Let's head down to 313, Billie Faegan is singing, and you will absolutely love her, Conn. What do you say?"

"Well, Conn, that definitely makes you crazy," she says with a laugh as they proceed down the block towards the 313. 

Several days later, Mercedes finds herself sitting in the distillery, quite alone. One by one, the people of Detroit were disappearing, and no one knew why. Some she knew, some she didn't, but she herself had two associates she hadn't seen in days. Two former crewmates, Matches Malone and Andrei Morello, had taken their own lives.

Slowly spinning the whiskey glass on the table in front of her, she wonders just how joyous Christmas would be this year, because things weren't looking good.

Kate grabs a bottle and an empty glass from the bar slides into the seat across from Mercedes. Sighing, she wordlessly poured herself a glass and topped off Mercedes. The two women sat in silence for a little while.

"So... aren't you going to ask me about my day at work?"

Kate smirks.

"I've got a pretty good idea. I've read the papers," she says, a bit sadly. 

"I know we're in...a line of business where death is a constant companion, but...." her eyes unfocus a bit as she continues to spin the whiskey glass around and around. Her new bad habit.

"I've become obsessed with reading obituaries. Newspaper stories. Listening for radio announcements. This is bad, Katie. Really bad."

"I know. Just trying to stay as positive as you are."

Kate smiles- but it's a quiet, reassuring smile- but there's a hardness in it, as well as in her eyes.

"I'm going to hunt down whoever it is and make them stop. Permanently. I promise."

Reaching for Kate's hand across the table, she squeezes it. 

"I hope so. I mean, I have complete faith in you, don't get me wrong. I always find myself a bit depressed during the holidays, but this shit...Jesus, Kate. It's twisted, it's sick, and the cops just do not care because we're..." she trails off, then turns more directly to face Kate.

"Can I help, in any way? Your brain never stops...I hear you in your sleep...so I know you're calculating. I'd like to help," she says adamantly.

Kate sips from her glass, nursing it and drinking substantially less than usual, focusing on the most important thing, in her mind.

"Why are you depressed during the holidays?"

"I believe lots of people are, although I can't speak for others. Personally? Never had anyone to celebrate with. I mean, there are friends, crew mates...but I haven't had family in years. I grew up without a father around. No siblings. My mother was...well, let's go with 'unfit'. Technically, I'm a lot better off, but...even now, no husband, no kids. The holidays...it's like being strangled by a goddamn door wreath. 

"But now, with this shit...someone wants to take what little I've got? I know it's not personal. But it's not helping my emotional state."

"You have me to celebrate with now. We'll cook up something fun. Anything you want. Literally."

Kate creased her forehead in thought, led astray once again by the conversation- but compelled to follow.

"Do you want kids, Mercedes?"

Surprise crosses her face before she can put words together to form an answer.

"Yes. No. I don't like the thought of bringing a pawn into the game right now. A dog...no, maybe a cat would be nice. Like a practice run?" she laughs at her own stupidity, but the thought of sipping eggnog in front of a fireplace next to Kate, with a kitty cat spread across their laps, was awfully sweet.

 Kate blinks.

"I... yea. We'll see. Sorry, I got kinda distracted there. Well, kind of. I want you to move into the Tower. With me. Like we talked about in Paris. It's safer there and... well, I just want you to. But you don't have to if you don't want to. I know Paris was kind of emotional."

Mercedes looks around the empty distillery. She can't shake the sadness, it's crushing her. She does the only thing that makes sense, and reaches for the lifeline that is Katie Logan.

"I'd like that. I don't think I can stay here anymore."

"I don't give you permission to stop making awesome whiskey. This place'll just be work now. Not home. Come on. I'll help you pack and we'll head to the Tower."

Rising, Kate drains her glass and heads back toward the office.

On a frigid day in December of that year, a woman arrives in a taxi cab out front of Detroit Distillations. Asking the driver to wait, she exits the cab and pushes open the front door. Inside, the place is deserted and cold, and the once-shimmering copper of the distiller stands like a silent giant. She stares at it a moment, then heads over to the makeshift bar on the opposite side of the room. Grabbing two bottles, she fashions one into a molotov cocktail with a table rag and an abandoned book of matches, lights it, and tosses it high into the air, where it smashes into the aging barrels. The flames spread quickly as she grabs the second bottle and leaves. Back in the cab, she instructs the driver to take her back to the airport. "It's gonna get hot. Hurry," she tells the driver, who looks back at her in the rear view mirror like she's crazy as she cradles the last whiskey bottle on her lap.

Merci crunches through the remains of the distillery, disappointed. 

Not surprising, really. There'd been too many wars since this place had been up and running, and even if the building hadn't been torched to the ground, it certainly would have been ransacked several times over.

Ah, well. It was worth a shot, coming to look. One simply didn't get their hands on whisky like that, these days...

Sky grins at Merci she was an odd one, actually walking through the wreckage of an old building not your typical high ranking women.  She didn’t seem to know it was there which made the sight all the more unusual, picking his way through the wreck of a building as silently as possible he find himself behind her. Reaching out he takes her hand waiting the few seconds while she freaks out from the sudden touch, once she calms down he smiles and winks at her before leading her through the wreckage of the old building.

Coming up to an odd clearing near the back of the building he stops, walks a few paces forward and crouches revealing a trap door. Opening the trap door to reveal a crate of whiskey, reaching down he grabs a few for the lovely lady and offers them to her with a smile.

“Were these what you were looking for hun?”

On the flight here from Chicago, it finally dawned on Merci what the initials stood for that she'd just tattooed on Curry. Unbuckling her seatbelt, she excused herself and got up from the seat where she'd been sitting next to Kathryn, and sat in the empty one next to The_Courier . 

"Impulsive. But I'm honored you'd do such a thing. Thank you," she'd said, planting a solid kiss on his lips before returning to her seat.

Now, here the three stood, in the rubble of a distillery that once meant something to someone. She pulled the hidden hatch door that had been pointed out to her by a recently deceased friend, then had Curry help her haul out the final case of Mercedes_Kompressor's whiskey. Smiling, she held up a bottle and indicated they should hide the rest behind The Wall before heading to an abandoned bar or club. Looking at Kathryn with a fond smile, she's pretty sure she knows a place or two.