At long last, finally I'm posting! My deepest thanks to Cr1mson5thestranger, who helped plot a great deal of this starting nearly 2 years ago! Updates should be once a week, rouchly. Many trigger warnings for this, in general: medical torture, medical experimentation, dubious science, nonconsensual drugging, and kidnapping. more speific warnings will be used in each chapter heading. Here it goes!

Prologue

Detective Joseph West scanned the report on his desk again, hoping that in the two seconds he hadn't been looking at it, the results would be different. It was a simple evidence report, two blood samples, not something terribly easy to screw up. Still, he'd had one of the CSI techs run it twice, praying it had been wrong. He picked up the paper, and the edges crinkled in his hands, almost ripping because he couldn't stop himself from shaking.

The samples-one from a warehouse floor, a weeks old stain in the concrete by the time they'd found it, and one from a tattered, bloody shirt-were a match. No amount of hoping, praying, or willing the evidence to say otherwise would change it. Eddie suspected already, had from the minute they'd seen the torn shirt with its bullet-holes, but so many impossible, miraculous things had happened in the last year and a half that they'd hoped. Joe caught his partner's eye from across the bullpen, the younger man's grim expression a mirror of his own.

"Are they sure?" Eddie asked as Joe got to his feet, suddenly unsteady."They're sure it's a match, that it's his?"
"Yeah. And from the amount on the shirt...from where the entry wound had to be…" he trailed off, and sighed heavily. "We don't have a body, Eddie, but-."

"But you think that's...what we'll find. If we find anything at all." Eddie's shoulders slumped, his eyes dimmer. "I should call Iris."

"You do that, but careful. Make sure she stays put. I know we're being watched here. Eddie, this is it. It's been weeks, and this is all we've got. This, that damn letter, the email, the ring, and none of it's going to get us anywhere. I'm going to tell the Captain, and call…" He sighed, his face paling slightly, as if the florescent lights were too strong. "Someone has to tell him. I have to tell him, he shouldn't hear it from Iris or Clarissa or... They aren't the ones who..."

"Joe, you said yourself it seemed too-too obvious, too manufactured to be real, and we know, we know that that letter was a fake! You can't really think they're … dead."
"I said I hoped. And I still do, but there isn't anything we can do here. Not now. Call Iris, I don't want her coming here to ask about the results. It's not safe." Joe dragged a hand over his eyes briefly, then dropped it.

"I'll-I'll file this, and get the the reports from the file room, Joe." Eddie took the paper, not wanting to read what it said, not wanting to know. He knew anyway. "I'll meet you in the Captain's office."

Eddie's heart wasn't in the tight, wan smile he gave the uniform behind the evidence desk. "I need the whole file-all of them, actually." He rattled of file numbers he'd memorized and could have given in his sleep. "The case is...no longer an ongoing investigation. None of them are."

The officer gaped at him. "But...Detective," she protested, unsteadily. "I thought Allen was your friend, that you said there was something fishy-."

Eddie swallowed. "They are...were... all my friends," he replied, more tersely than he'd meant to. "And I'm doing the only thing that's left for me to do as their friend."

She seemed unconvinced. "You said you were going to look as long as you were still breathing-"

"What does it matter to you how I handle my cases?!" Eddie snapped, the last of his patience wearing away. "This is hard enough without you throwing up a damn roadblock! Just-" He cut himself off to take a deep breath and regain his composure. "It's not my call to make. Just...give me the files, Cooper. Please. Don't make this any harder."
He tucked the files under his arm, taking the stairs to the captain's office slowly. He paused at his desk to take the blood sample analysis report and slide it into the proper file, just under the topsheet.

Missing persons report: Francisco Ramon

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