Alright, it's time to branch out into a whole story this time. This is going to be an AU, so be prepared for some role switching and general deviation from the Blue Bloods storyline.

My usual warnings/prescriptions/notes/commentaries/monologues apply : No slash, no romance, no M rated stuff, but be prepared for a healthy dose of angst, violence, and shenanigans. =P

Disclaimer: I do not own Blue Bloods.

These roads never seemed so long
Since your paper heart stopped beating

Leaving me suddenly alone.
Will daybreak ever come?

~ Anberlin, Paperthin Hymn

Bloody didn't begin to cover it.

Danny had seen a lot of crime scenes, but Rob Henderson and Joe Riordan's deaths were one of the more brutal ones. According to onlookers, he and his partner were gunned down by rival gangs long before any backup could reach them.

"It's going to be a mess tracking down who killed them." Jackie came up behind him, hands on her hips. A sad frown tugged at her brow. "I hate it when our guys get caught up in some gang's quest for power. It's so senseless."

"I know, Jack." Danny glanced at Joe's face. "And Joe here wasn't much more than a rookie. How old was he? 22? 23?"

"Somewhere around there. He have any family?"

"Not that I heard him talk about, but we can dig around. We need to let Henderson's family know."

"Okay. I'll also check with the canvassing units, see if we can get anything useful." She stepped back out of the alley where the bodies lay and headed back to the yellow tape near the entrance.

"Hey Reagan!" A new voice called.

"Yeah? What is it?"

"We got the lieutenant from precinct 12 here."

"Alright, let him in."

A tall, lean man with sharp cheekbones strode into the alley. His grim face became grimmer as his eyes fell on the two fallen officers. "You never want to receive these kind of calls, Detective."

"I know, sir." Danny stood up from his crouch next to the bodies. "Do you have any idea what gangs might be behind it?"

"Gangs?" The man's eyebrows rose. "What gave you the idea there was more than one?"

"Well, we were told by witnesses that there was some sort of conflict between two gangs and the officers were caught in the crossfire."

The lieutenant was already shaking his head before Danny had even finished speaking. "There's only one gang of significance in this area that you should be looking at. Crime family is more like it. The O'Neil family."

"Irish gang, huh?"

"Your people, Reagan."

"My people are the ones in the NYPD and two of them are lying right here. I'm going to find the guys who did this."

"I know you will, Danny."

Danny saw that he was getting ready to leave. "One more question for you."

The lieutenant paused, waiting.

"We're contacting Henderson's family, but I don't know much about Joe. Do you have contact info for any family in the area? Maybe a girlfriend that we could notify, perhaps?"

A sad smile twisted the lieutenant's lips. "Joe doesn't have any family...or, at least, not any that he kept in contact with. He was a lone wolf, liked to keep to himself. He was friendly enough to his fellow cops, but any time someone asked about his personal life, he'd clam right up..."

"But?" Danny prompted, sensing there was something more.

"Well...he sometimes let slip that there was a Jamie in his life. He never said much about her, but...whoever she is, he loved her more than anything."

Danny jotted that down in his notes. "You ever see this Jamie?"

"No, but I got the impression she's around Joe a lot in his down time. I can give you his address in case you want to swing by and see if she's there. Even if she isn't, chances are she'll drop by eventually."

"I'd appreciate that. Thanks, Lieutenant."

The man wrote down an address on a business card and handed it to him. "Do what you can to catch these guys, Reagan. You have our full cooperation, let us know if there is anything we can do to help."

"Thanks, I'll probably swing by your precinct later to see if I can find anything helpful in their lockers."

The lieutenant nodded and walked away, passing Jackie as she headed back to her partner. "Get anything?"

Danny held up the card. "Joe's address. Apparently he has an elusive girlfriend who will want to know he's gone."

"You want to go now?"

"Yeah, I think I've done all I can do here." He slipped the card into his pocket. "Let's go."

"Not the best neighborhood, is it?" Danny wrinkled his nose as he and Jackie made their way around a couple of overflowing trash bins to the old stairs that led up to Joe's apartment.

"Not all cops can afford nice-looking digs like ours, Reagan," Jackie said.

"I'm not sure if I can afford my digs." They made it up to the fourth landing and headed down the hall of doors, looking for Joe's apartment. Just as they were about to reach the end of the hall, they came to a door with the numbers peeling off, barely legible. "This is it. Apartment 144."

Jackie knocked on the door. "NYPD, open up!"

They waited a few seconds, but heard nothing from inside.

Jackie tilted her head towards the doorframe. "It is a little odd to be knocking on the door of a dead guy, especially one whose girlfriend's never been seen. Maybe he made her up so that his cop buddies would get off his back."

Danny shrugged. "Maybe. But we both know that silence is not the best way to determine if someone's home or not. I got Joe's key, let's take a look inside."

It took some jimmying to get the key to work in the old lock, but it finally turned and the door opened with a depressed whine. Danny pulled out his gun and stepped into the dim apartment, Jackie just behind him. "NYPD! We're coming in."

He found a light switch on the left wall and flicked it on. As light flooded the area, they found themselves in a narrow entryway that opened directly into a living room. Despite the rough exterior of the apartment complex, Joe's living room was clean and orderly, with few items cluttering the space. "Looks like Joe was a neat freak."

Jackie nodded, impressed. "Wish I could keep my apartment this clean."

A cursory sweep of the room revealed no one and nothing out of place, so they moved on to the adjoining kitchen. The same meticulous attention to detail carried on into this room, not even a dirty dish in the sink. Jackie quirked an eyebrow at the neatly folded dishtowel. "I don't know, Reagan, I'm starting to buy into this whole girlfriend thing. No way Joe was this clean."

"A guy can be clean too!" Danny protested.

"Name one that you know."

"I'll get back to you on that."

"Uh-huh."

Danny walked back into the living room, gun held loosely at his side. He eyed the spotless living room again with incredulity. As he turned towards the small hall he'd seen earlier that he assumed led to the bedroom, a slim shadow lurking there made him stop. But what really caught his attention was the gun gleaming in the shadow's hand. He brought his own weapon to bear. "Hey! NYPD! Put the gun down!"

Jackie darted back into the room as a soft voice responded, "What are you doing here?"

A male voice.

"Why don't you put the gun down and step out of there and we'll tell you why we're here, deal?" Danny edged slowly to the right so that Jackie could come in closer and cover the guy from a different angle.

"I don't make deals with intruders...even if they're cops."

"Well, according to my info, this is Joe Riordan's apartment and I know you aren't him, so you must be an intruder too. Put down your gun and come out where I can see you."

"Where's Joe?" The gun didn't waver. Whoever held it knew what they were doing.

Jackie decided to try her hand at talking to him, "We're just looking for Jamie, okay? We don't want to hurt anyone, we just need to talk to her, okay?"

A small snort escaped the shadow. "Shows what you know."

Danny tightened his grip on his weapon. "What do you mean by that?"

The gun pointed at them dropped and the shadow moved forward. "I'm Jamie."

The light fell onto a teenage boy a couple of inches shorter than Danny. He had dirty blond hair and sad blue eyes, but the most distinct feature were the scars that decorated the left side of his face. They were jagged and deep, some crisscrossing over others, probably caused by a serrated knife. He clenched his jaw defiantly, but Danny could see he was scared.

"Well, we can safely rule out girlfriend," Jackie sighed before she held out one of her hands. "You wanna hand over that gun?"

Jamie hesitated a second longer, but put the gun in her grasp.

Danny relaxed, holstering his weapon. "Good, now that we've got that out of the way, we can have a civil conversation."

"How old are you?" Jackie asked as she put away both of her weapons, a slightly disturbed look on her face.

Jamie sneered at her. "Not that it's any of your business, but I'm eighteen."

"Try again," Danny smirked.

The kid lost none of his hostility, but he dropped his gaze. "Sixteen."

Jackie started muttering to herself.

Jamie glared at her. "And before you go and start thinking disrespectful things, Joe and I are brothers."

"Brothers?" Danny's eyebrows rose, but even as he voiced the question, he could see the resemblance between the two. He swallowed. This made their visit that much harder. A glance at Jackie assured him that she was thinking the same thing.

"You still haven't answered my question." Jamie folded his arms over his chest. "Where's Joe?"