Chasing after a petty thief in a case of a stolen bicycle pump that quickly turned complicated – that was typical for the boys. So was the thief turning out to be both a mob boss and a gardening aficionado leading a scheme to rob all of Dallas' supermarkets. It was just another day on the job.
They had managed to corner the little bastard in the parking lot of a Sam's Club and were close to arresting him. Back-up had already been called ten minutes ago; naturally, they were running a little late. The thief hiding a gun in his boxers (no one really wanted to know where in his boxers) and shooting once into Dan's chest before escaping on foot – that was a little atypical, but nothing that couldn't be dealt with. Until Jack realized the bullet had gone through his lung and his idiot partner wasn't wearing a safety vest like he was supposed to. And then he fell onto the pavement, a look of surprise arrested on his face as he realized he had been shot.
This couldn't be happening, Jack thought. Then the only thing he could hear was the sound of his feet pounding the pavement, the roar of police sirens as back-up entered the area. Tiny pathetic breaths from an unmoving Dan.
He dropped to his knees beside Dan, ignoring the gravel digging into his legs and the fact that their perp was getting away. There was so much blood from just one shot; Jack quickly tore into his jacket and pressed it into the wound to try and halt the flow. The fabric quickly turned dark and wet in his hands.
All the while, he was calling out Dan's name, trying to keep him alert, trying to keep him conscious just a little longer. Jack faintly registered one of his fellow officers arriving on the scene and barking into his radio: Officer down, we need a bus stat.
"Dan. Look at me. Dan. Come on!"
Dan opened his eyes and stared up blankly into Jack's face. "It really hurts, man."
On any other occasion, Jack would have just made a short remark, pulled Dan up and the two of them would have walked away to see another sunset. That wasn't today.
"I know, Dan. You gotta hang in there."
"Did we catch him?"
"I don't know." Jack pressed harder into the mess of fabric soaking up Dan's blood like it was the only thing keeping the older man's guts in. "Dan. Listen to me. You have to hang on; the ambulance is on its way."
Dan coughed and there was a brittle snapping sound, someone stepping on a twig except it wasn't, it was something in Dan's chest and now Jack was looking around frantically, shouting about when that damn ambulance was going to show up already, looking back to see his friend's face turned white as ash.
"Dan." No response. "Dan!"
A shudder of a breath escaped his partner's mouth. "We were good together, kid. We were so good together."
"Shut up, Dan, shut up." Jack's hands shook as he kept his slippery hold on Dan's chest. "Stop talking like you're going to die."
"Sorry, Jack. You're on your own now." He grabbed at Jack's hands with his own and a look of pure fear crossed his features. "I don't – "
Jack leaned in until his face was mere inches away from Dan's. "What? You don't what?"
And then he realized he couldn't feel any breath on his face. He was alone; Dan was already gone.
The ambulance arrived fifteen minutes later, but by that time no one was around who needed assistance.
The men who had returned to the scene after apprehending the runaway thief (found cowering in a rosebush - he wasn't a very good mob boss) would later tell the local news that what they saw was a terrible vision for any officer to see on the job: Jack Bailey slowly walking through the parking lot and carrying the unmoving body of his partner, shirtsleeves stained in bursts of red. They didn't follow him.
They eventually sent out a small team of officers, who found Jack half an hour later at Dan's trailer; he had taken his partner home and put him in his bed like Dan was only drunk and passed out after another night of boozing. Whatever superhuman strength that had led him to carry Dan such a distance had deserted him, leaving him in a state of shock at the foot of Dan's bed, head cradled in his hands. Dan did not really have any clean chairs, so Jack had ended up sitting on the floor; he didn't seem to notice. Two police officers took him by the elbows and as gracefully as possible dragged him out, making sure to try and edge his line of sight from the body of the bed.
It was only when one of the officers who had carried him out handed over Dan's badge, battered and stained, as a gesture of kindness between two fellow policemen that Jack began to cry, the kind of loud sobs that made the officers look away, not out of pity but out of respect, and a small fear that this was their future.
When they finally let him out of his sight, Jack drove to the nearest clam shack and ate oysters and drank beer until he threw up, because he was pretty sure that's what Dan would have wanted him to do. One of his old girlfriends liked a song with the line "would drink until she was no longer speaking", and that suddenly sounded like a good idea, so he did all of that until it was after closing time and the owner had to drive him to his apartment lest he got himself killed trying to drive.
He woke up the following afternoon lying on his couch with a drum beat pounding in his skull, an absence of something hollowed deep within his chest, and a dulled police badge clasped tightly in one hand, the blood splashed against the shield sticking to his palm.
Jack woke up alone and he knew that Dan was gone.
Jack stumbled into a lukewarm shower and he knew that Dan was gone.
Jack ran a dull razor across his cheek and he knew that Dan was gone.
Jack picked up the badge that he had left lying on the couch and he knew that Dan was gone.
He went back to work, eventually. Two weeks on desk duty, a month of regular sessions with the police issued therapist and talking about his feelings as if it was his feelings that cost him his partner. A month of Ruiz giving him pitful glances from her office and refusing to push him in the direction of any cases bigger than vandalism or simple robbery.
He thought he was okay until a case sent him to Julius' bar for some information and he found out no one bothered to tell the man Dan was dead. They spent the following night getting drunk behind the bar until they passed out on the floor, faces red and wet but from crying or laughter no one could tell.
"Shit, he's not really gone, is he?" Julius kept asking. Jack just nodded and said yes and took another drink that felt more like several hard gulps every time.
Two days later, Jack woke up on his couch as the sun was rising. He stumbled into another not hot shower, intent on getting clean before going to work, but not enough to bother turning the light on. In his undershirt and boxers, he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and started shaving and wondered when it had become so easy to move on. He used to be young but now he was older and alone and Liz would not even consider dating him because a month before Dan was shot Jack told her he couldn't choose between his girlfriend and his partner and now he never would have to because they had both left him.
He looked back at his reflection, razor angled to catch the scruff attempting to grow on the underside of his chin, and saw that his was not the only face showing back in the mirror.
"Good morning, partner," Dan said.
Jack shouted and nearly cut himself, lashing out to turn the bathroom light on. By the time it was on, he could not see Dan's face anymore, just his own. It took him a minute for him to finish shaving because he kept closing his eyes and opening them, expecting to see another person's reflection beside his own one more time. He did not tell anyone about it because the last thing he needed was a psych evaluation and another month of trips to the psychiatrist for more feelings chats. So no one learned about the first time Jack saw Dan after his death until it was too late.
Naturally, Jack thought nothing of it because his brain worked in mysterious ways and maybe it was a way of telling the poor guy not to forget his old partner no matter what. So he let it alone, kept on working the minor case beat and for once in a long time none of his cases turned into cracked out conspiracies with high speed chases and all out gun battles. It was safe and predictable and the paperwork was friendly and boring. He worked until nine and then went home and got drunk in front of the television, or went to Julius' bar and got drunk there. No one messed with him because he was still a police officer and he had two badges clipped to his belt and everyone knew what the second one, still flecked with blood, really meant.
One night, Liz dared to venture over to Jack's apartment, using the spare key he gave her years ago, and found him passed out on the couch with the television set still on. By the pale light of the TV, she grabbed a clean looking duvet from his bedroom and spread it over his body, keeping her hands from touching his body more than she felt comfortable with. She turned to leave him - there was nothing else she could do for him that night - and in the corner of her eye Liz thought she saw someone standing at the head of the couch, leaning over Jack and casting a shadow on the sleeping man's face.
Liz turned around, unsure of what she saw. The apparition was gone. For a moment, she thought the figure looked familiar, and the thought had her out the door in seconds because she didn't want to consider the possibility that her ex-boyfriend was being pursued by his ex-partner.
By that time, it was already too far gone. Jack had already been claimed.
What she did do was make a phone call to the only person on the face of the planet who might understand what Jack was going through - and that was Dan's ex-partner Frank Savage. Somehow, Liz managed to convince Frank that Jack needed a familiar face from Dan's past by his side - although it was easier than it would have been before since Frank himself was still reeling from Dan's death. He admitted his wife did not understand what he was going through and agreed to visit Jack that weekend to make sure he was all right.
This meant, of course, trying to convince Jack to actually go home over the weekend instead of working late both days and falling asleep at his desk - which involved getting Ruiz involved in her plan without alerting Jack to the fact that there was a scheme going on behind the scenes. When it turned three o'clock on Saturday and Jack was still at his desk working on some paperwork for a recently closed carjacking case, Ruiz marched over and literally ordered him to go home for the day.
"Are you sure, Lieutenant?" Jack held up the manila file in his hand. "I still have to finish this paper-"
"It'll still be here Monday, which is the earliest I expect you to come back. You understand?" Ruiz gave him as hard a look as possible. "Go home and take the weekend off before I make it permanent."
"Now?"
"Now." Ruiz wasn't satisfied until she watched Jack's car leave the parking lot and it was only then that his fellow officers began venturing guesses as to what was going on that would make Ruiz force a two-day vacation on his head like that. She shouted at them to mind their own business before walking back to her office, shut the door loudly, and punched the wall in frustration.
Jack came home and noticed as soon as he came off the elevator that his apartment door was slightly ajar, the lights were on, and the sounds of Journey were drifting down the hallway. In seconds, his service revolver was out and in his hands, and he was slowly pacing down the hallway ready to shoot his apartment's loud and probably very stupid intruder. He smelled the overpowering odor of whiskey several steps away from the door and by the time he was standing in the hallway, gun put away, he knew who was inside. Good ol' Frank Savage, sitting in Jack's recliner like he belonged there, a glass of whiskey shining in his hand from the obscene amount of ice in it.
"Frank." Jack sighed and relaxed his tensed shoulders. "What the hell are you doing?"
Frank lifted his glass in greeting. "Hola, Bailey! Come on over and have a drink with me." Jack looked and saw he had dragged over his coffee table and made it into his own mini bar. At least he found the coasters, Jack noted silently. He joined Frank in defeat, slumping into the seat opposite his, and even let the older man pour him a drink on the rocks.
"How's life been treating you, Bailey? Been a while, you know."
Jack nodded. "Yeah, it has."
"I'm sure the punks out on the street been giving you hell."
"You'd be surprised. There must be something in the water - the petty crime rates in Dallas are starting to drop like flies."
"Ruiz not giving you too much trouble?"
"No - wait, what?" Jack looked over at Frank with one eyebrow cocked upwards in surprise. "When did you start caring about how my boss treats me?"
Frank shrugged. "Just trying to make sure you're okay. Is that so wrong?"
Were it any other day, Jack would stand up and give Frank hell for being so nosy and tell him to keep in his own business. But it was Saturday, so he didn't. Saturday usually meant sitting at home alone with a stiff drink and his memories. So he just sat back farther into his chair and sighed again. "No, I guess not. How is Mrs. Savage?"
"She's fine." Frank smiled. "That's my girl. I'll never understand why she still sticks around after all the hell I put her through with the job."
"You mean with you and Dan, right?" When Frank looked ready to jump out of his chair in shock, Dan just rolled his eyes and gestured at him to calm down. "You and Ruiz and everyone else keep tiptoeing around me on eggshells and it really needs to stop, okay? I'm fine. I'm over it."
Frank took a hard gulp from his glass. "You can say that."
"I just did."
"Then answer me this." Frank turned and looked Jack straight in the eye; his sudden seriousness took Jack by surprise. "Why haven't you been assigned another partner yet?"
"I - I don't know." Jack faltered. He took another drink to steady his nerves and for the sixth time that day mentally checked the presence of the second shield on his belt.
"Because Ruiz knows what everyone knows - you are not okay." Frank laughed. "Christ, Jack, it's okay to be hung up over Dan's death but . . . shit, you're not the only one hurting, okay?"
"Sorry," Jack murmured into his glass because he didn't know the right words to say. He sat there for a while, awkwardly, as Frank did everything he could to keep the tears forming in his eyes from overpowering him. After a while, he refilled both of their glasses and they spent the night drinking and not talking about Dan lest either of them remember how much being alone hurt.
In the morning, Jack woke up in an empty apartment; Frank's wife had come by the night before and taken her drunk husband home. He didn't have to explain the situation to her. She did, however, look at him as if she wished things had happened differently that day and for once, Jack couldn't blame her. He could say the thought had never crossed his mind, but that would be a lie.
He was done lying to himself. It had been two months and the absence of Dan - wonderfully mad, always loud, and ready for danger Dan - was an open wound that still pained him at every moment.
This realization, of course, came with a price. That price was that the more Jack realized he still missed Dan, the more Dan kept nosing back into his life, whether he liked it or not. For a dead man, Dan had a way of making his presence known.
Jack, still lying in bed the morning after, rolled over in an attempt to at least begin to start to face the day looking decent and found himself face to face with a dead man. A dead man with a familiar moustache and a big grin and looking rather lively for a ghost.
"Mornin'!"
"Jesus, Dan, what?" Jack rubbed the back of his neck, blinking away sleep and last night's drinking session out of his brain.
"Did you think you'd get rid of me that easily?" Dan snorted. "You can't lose a partner that easily!"
"I - really?" This wasn't happening. Clearly, he was still dreaming. He would have pinched himself to make sure but his body was still numb and not ready to get too active. "Are you really here?"
"Yeah, man. Go on and touch me if you don't believe me." Dan stretched out under the covers, rustling the sheets in the process.
"I don't think that's a great idea." It didn't even matter if Dan was real or not at that point. Touching - real physical contact - was more than he'd had with Liz in the past several months. It was more than what Dan had over the past months, full stop.
"It's just between partners. It's totally cool, Jack."
"Fine. Just - fine, stop looking at me like that, Dan, I'll touch you already."
So Jack reached out and took a hold of Dan's shoulder peeking over the blankets and he could feel it and it was real enough in his hand. Which meant Dan was solid and living next to him as if his death had never happened.
"You're real?" Jack could not keep the surprise out of his voice.
"As real as you want me to be," Dan said in the kind of tone he usually reserved for hitting on Ruiz at the office. It certainly did not go unnoticed. "Did you miss me, partner?"
He couldn't lie. "Yeah, I did." Jack laughed nervously. "Dan, seriously what the hell is going on?"
"What do you think? I'm back, man! Don't I deserve some kind of hero's welcome?" Dan grinned at him so smugly that Jack was overcome with a familiar feeling of wiping the look off of his face. So he did.
Dan's moustache was less bristly than he had thought. Jack did not know how Dan would respond until Dan started sticking his tongue down the younger man's throat and Jack wondered glibly if he kissed Ruiz - or Savage - the same way. He really didn't care, though. All he knew was that it was Dan Stark alive and breathing and lying in his bed, underneath his frantic weight, pulling on his shirt with both hands like if he let go for one second he would disappear.
This, thought Jack, was what he had wanted the whole time. It had just taken several years of being partners and a little life or death situation to make it happen. Jack wanted to take a step back and tell Dan how much he wanted it and how much he missed the other man and what he was feeling inside and Jack fully intended to until he felt Dan's hand slip down past the waistband of his boxers and grab his cock - and at that point, rational thought pretty much left the building.
Now that, Jack realized dimly, was something he never did with Ruiz. He opened his mouth as if to point it out, and at the same time Dan's hand began moving at a frantic pace wrapped around his shaft, and any reasonable words he could have said turned into a low moan of Dan's name that sent his cheeks flushing.
Jack closed his eyes and came, loudly. The pressure on his body ceased and he opened his eyes to see that he was once again alone in his own bed, lying belly-down on the mattress with his boxers halfway down his hips and his cock hanging out, spent from someone who wasn't there anymore.
For a moment, he laid there and closed his eyes again, hoping that when he opened them a second time Dan would be back. He opened them. Dan was still gone. Somehow, Jack found the energy to climb out of bed and shower, deciding not to think about his non-existent moment with his ex-partner. It was probably just a genuine-feeling hallucination brought on by stress, or so he assumed. The other possibility was one he would not even consider. The other possibility being that Dan would never leave him - ever.
If he had, though, he would have been right.
Even when Dan wasn't lying beside him and disappearing like a phantom, he literally lurked around in Jack's mental space after his first morning visit, a heavy presence that refused to go away completely. This would have been tolerable if Jack was anyone else, but he was a police officer, and his job required one hundred percent mental and physical concentration. Which was hard to do when his dead partner kept appearing around random corners, sitting at his old desk like nothing ever happened, following Jack to the bathroom and to Ruiz' office and out on the beat. Of course, Dan could not keep quiet, always having to make a comment about everything, but for the most part Jack could ignore him. After all, it was only in his head.
The sex wasn't; the sex was real. It almost had to be. Jack was finally fucking the man who had in his own infuriating way slipped into the other man's company as a partner, as a friend, as an object of detached affection that couldn't be reached. As he had imagined, it didn't matter where they were or what time of day it was; Dan would appear out of thin air and before long they would be fooling around (making love, Dan corrected, sweet partner love and Jack just rolled his eyes). Years of wanting led to endless moments of receiving. If it wasn't real, he didn't want to know.
And yet he knew, in the back of his mind, it all had to end eventually. This Dan Stark who talked to him and touched him couldn't be real. Still, he couldn't just ignore him. They were still partners, after all.
During a case involving a car theft, Jack came up to Liz's office for a warrant to search a lead suspect's garage. It was business as usual for the both of them except that Liz could not help but notice small differences in Jack's behavior, differences that would be missed by most people. He didn't look as tired as before, which was good. But the fact that Jack kept looking at something past the corner of his eye when he thought Liz wasn't looking at him - like he was looking for someone that wasn't there - worried her. And then she remembered her late night visit to Dan's apartment and what she had seen, and the worry only grew.
Naturally, Liz brought her concerns directly to the desk of Lieutenant Ruiz, who told the assistant district attorney she would look into it. As soon as Liz gratefully left her office, Ruiz sighed and wondered what the hell she had gotten herself into. Still, if one of her detectives were in trouble, she would always make sure they were helped. Even if what Liz told her was true, they were in trouble because of their ex-partner. Ruiz didn't believe in ghosts, but she did believe that if things were straightened out, their entire outfit would be in trouble.
That night, Ruiz kept a sharp eye on Jack's desk until he left after nine. He did seem a little distracted, even when he was working. It wasn't until she saw him return from a trip to the bathroom with his tie half-done and his face flushed that she knew something screwy was going on. So as soon as she was able, Ruiz locked up her office, told the remaining night shift officers to call her cell phone if anything major happened, and was soon following Jack's car down the Dallas highway.
Jack knew something was wrong from the moment he got into the car. Dan had appeared out of nowhere at the front doors and followed him to the car, but had been oddly quiet ever since. He was sitting (if mental apparitions could really 'sit') in the front passenger seat, staring out the window and keeping silent despite Jack's attempts to start a conversation and Dan's favorite music station playing on the radio.
It did not really bother him that much, but he had become used to Dan popping up out of nowhere and prattling on invisibly in his ear as he worked. This silence of his was unusual, real or not.
"Okay, what's wrong?" Jack asked over the sound of Foreigner on the radio.
Dan's image continued to sit silently by the window. Jack was starting to think his image was growing fainter by the edges every time he showed up. Maybe his brain was slowly exorcising the apparition from his head piece by piece until Dan Stark no longer existed even in Jack's subconscious. It was a terrifying thought.
"God damn it," Jack cursed, frowning over the steering wheel. "Why are you being so difficult? You're not even real!"
At that, Dan turned his head. "Come on, man, don't say that!"
"It's true, though, isn't it? You're not even real - you're just here because I'm too pathetic to let you go!" Jack thumped the steering wheel with a closed fist in frustration, keeping his eyes on the road. "All you are is something in my mind."
"I'm real, damn it!" Dan argued. "You've seen me, you've felt me - hell, you've done more than feel me - how can you-"
"Dan, just shut up." The next words from Jack's lips came out forced, like even he didn't want to say them aloud. "I watched you die in a parking lot months ago. I was there, okay? I can't forget watching Dan Stark bleeding out under my hands, and I can't just go on like it didn't happen. So whoever you are, you should just go away because the real Dan died a long time ago and maybe it would be better for everyone involved if we accepted it. So there!"
The car pulled up to a red light and shuddered to a stop. Jack didn't feel good at all about what he'd just said. He turned his head briefly to apologize and the apology forming in his mouth died. Dan's image was no longer sitting in the passenger seat; it was gone. He should have felt relieved that the . . . thing had disappeared but as he drove home, Jack just felt worse than before. By the time he had reached his apartment building, Jack was beginning to question whether or not he had done the right thing. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he never noticed Ruiz' car slip into a space a row behind him, or that the front door of the building opened behind him minutes after he had gone in. All he could think about as he rode the elevator to his floor was that he had just done something very wrong and there was no way to take it back.
His apartment smelled like Dan, old cologne and beer bottles, even in the bedroom. It didn't help that as he took off his jacket and tie, Dan's badge fell off his belt and landed on the floor with a loud metal clank. Without thinking, Jack quickly snatched it up and put it on his bedside table with his own badge like usual, then looked around as if Dan would appear out of nowhere and admonish him for dropping his badge.
"I'm so stupid," Jack muttered. And then he laughed at himself for thinking Jack would come back like that, laughed until it became dangerously close to something else.
A sharp knock at the door brought Jack out of his on-edge stupor. "Jack?" Ruiz's voice made him tense up. What was the lieutenant doing here? Still, he couldn't act like he wasn't home; his conscience would not allow it. So he quickly closed the bedroom door behind him and answered the front door to find Ruiz standing in the hallway with arms crossed. In short, there would be no way to get her to leave before she got what she came for - whatever that was.
"Lieutenant?" he asked dumbly.
"Jack, just let me in already," Ruiz groused. Without a word, Jack stepped aside and let Ruiz in, silently closing the door behind them. She didn't take a seat but instead stayed standing in the middle of the living room, which only made Jack more nervous.
"Listen, I know something is wrong - don't open your mouth, Bailey, you know it's true - and I know and Liz knows it's about Dan so there's no use lying to either of us anymore or telling us it's all okay when it's not."
Jack swallowed hard. "I'm - I've been better," he admitted. "But really, you shouldn't worry about me. I'm still doing my job."
"Yeah? Not anymore. I'm putting you on paid suspension for a week until we can settle this. No arguments!" Ruiz held up one finger and quickly shut down Dan's protests, which died unspoken on his lips.
"Yes, Lieutenant," Jack said pitifully. "What do you want me to do?"
Ruiz looked him over with a rare tender look that took him slightly aback. "We need to talk about Dan."
"We?"
"You," Ruiz clarified. "It has to be you." She flinched like she was in pain, and Jack realized that he wasn't the only one hurt by Dan's death. After all, she and Dan used to be involved. That was a kind of history that couldn't be forgotten completely; she'd shared moments with Dan when he was alive that Jack could only imagine.
"Okay," Jack said. "Let's - I mean, I'll talk." He shrugged. "Where do I start?"
Ruiz pulled him onto the couch and sat next to him, keeping one hand on his arm. "From the beginning, of course. Don't leave anything out."
"It all began with a stolen humidifier," he started.
She rolled her eyes. "Don't be a smartass, Jack. That's not what I meant."
Jack sighed. "Yeah. Okay."
"Start," Ruiz clarified, "from the day he died. Or when you realized you loved him."
"Shit!" He buried his head in his hands. "Who knew?" There wasn't any reason to lie at that point.
"I did. Hodges, eventually. Probably half the petty crimes and homicide departments. And Liz." At the sound of Liz's name, Jack just groaned and wished the floor would rise up and swallow him whole. "Oh, come on Jack, she told me that you couldn't choose between them. How else was she supposed to take that?"
"I was drunk at the time. I was hoping she would ignore me like all the other crap I say when I'm drinking."
"Don't try to change the subject." Ruiz frowned, shifted her weight on the couch cushion to look Jack in the eye. "All that matters is that it wasn't a secret so you either talk about it right now right here where no one but me can hear you, or I drag your mopey self down to the precinct and let the boys on the night shift hear everything. And Hodges is on night shift tonight."
"Oh." Jack found himself at a loss for words. "Okay."
"Just . . . start with the day he died then. Start from there and don't stop until you reach today." Ruiz sat back, giving Jack a little more breathing space. He didn't look good; his face was pale and sickly.
But somehow, he started talking - about Dan and their partnership, about watching him fade away quickly in the parking lot of a Sam's Club looking scared of death, about trying to move on from his death only to find Dan literally everywhere to the point that he was being haunted.
"And . . . he's gone," Jack said. His head was now hanging between his knees; he couldn't stand to look at Ruiz. "He disappeared and he hasn't come back and that's probably the last time I'll ever see Dan again."
Ruiz's hand on his arm tightened slightly. "Jack, everything you said is the truth, isn't it?"
He lifted up his head and smiled weakly. "Don't you think if I was making it up, I could think of a more creative lie? I had Dan Stark for a partner, after all."
"Jack, shut up and come here." Before he could respond, Ruiz had lifted him off his seat and wrapped him up in a hug that was sudden but comforting. He managed to relax his body in her arms, even though it felt really awkward to be hugged by his own lieutenant; he was just glad for the touch of someone who was real and cared about him.
Jack had expected Ruiz to call him crazy and a liar and yell at him. He did not expect immediate acceptance - and he certainly didn't expect the next words that came out of her mouth. "Do you want to see Dan again?"
"What?" He blinked, not believing his ears. "I - Lieutenant, you understand he's dead, right?"
"Don't act stupid," Ruiz grumbled. "I meant something else." And then she said what the 'something else' meant and the sound of Jack's jaw hitting the floor could be heard in the halls of the Texas State Capitol.
"Are you kidding?"
"No, I'm not! So what? This could work, don't you care?"
"I do care! I just don't think it's the answer?"
"Well, what is? You can't just start walking through Dallas calling his name, hoping he'll show up again!"
". . . Fine. Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay! Let's do it!" Jack admitted defeat. "So . . . what exactly do you know about séances anyway?"
"Into the tent," Ruiz commanded.
He looked hesitant for a second, and Ruiz snapped off, "Look, we've got all of Dan's stuff in a circle around the tent and all the other hocus pocus crap like the book said so the least you can do is get in the tent!"
Jack saluted weakly. "Yes, Lieutenant." He ducked dutifully into the tent. Darkness surrounded him as the flaps of the tent closed up behind him. As he sat cross-legged in the fairly big tent, he reflected quietly on the events that had led up to it. Ruiz had pretty much hurried him through the process of setting up what she had called a séance but in hindsight seemed more like a new age parlor trick. This involved driving to Dan's abandoned trailer, which had been locked down and cordoned off with police tape to scare away vagrants, and grabbing some of his valuables that Dan had been particularly attached to when he was alive: his record collection; his cell phone with the Foghat ringtone; a collection of sunglasses; Dan's favorite tie which still smelled like oysters and beer. Jack tried to offer his partner's old badge to the mix but Ruiz quickly told him it would be better if he just wore it for the time being. Good point.
And now Jack was stuck laid in a half-circle around a tent they had bought from a nearby Wal-Mart which in turn was sitting in the back yard of Dan's trailer, sticking out like a sore thumb as much as the trailer did. Jack wondered off-handedly how many palms Ruiz had to grease so the locals wouldn't try to bother their little ceremony of . . . whatever it was.
"I feel silly," Jack said aloud, but he guessed Ruiz couldn't hear him through the thick fabric because he didn't hear a snarky comeback in turn. "What do I do now?" he called out but still got no response.
Well. If that was the way things were going to turn out - no, Jack told himself, concentrate. Remember why you're here. For Dan. So he ignored the dead cold grass pressing into the seat of his pants and closed his eyes, feeling self-conscious of where he was for the first time. No, that wasn't important, he had to remember Dan Stark when he was alive and then maybe, just maybe, he would appear yet again.
So. There was Dan, sitting behind the wheel of his favorite car, tapping out the rhythm of another old school song on the steering wheel. Dan leaning back at Julius' bar with a drink in his hand, eyeing up every ass that passed by. Okay, maybe not that memory. Still. Dan at the target range, the sound of bullets ringing out as he grinned cheerfully over his gun. And there, Dan running down the city sidewalk in pursuit of yet another punk and eventually pushing the poor guy into a water fountain, soaking both of them and causing Jack to have to step in and drag both men out by the shirt collars.
"Jack."
And then there was Dan, drunk to the point of passing out and having decided that it wasn't worth the trouble of taking the bus back to his own trailer, instead crashed on Jack's couch without so much as a please or thank you. There was Dan, snoring with all the grace of an off-key recorder, hair falling limply over his forehead and with one arm hanging off the couch, holding his badge. His breath reeked of booze and fries and something annoyingly floral, like Dan had sprayed something into his mouth before coming over as one did before going on a date. Jack didn't have the heart to push poor passed out Dan out of his apartment, so he spread a blanket over the older man's unconscious body and as he passed by the couch on the way to his own bed he resisted the urge resonating through his body to lean down and kiss Dan on the forehead like a sleeping child.
Maybe, Jack thought, if he had done so, Dan would have woken up and they would have gotten it over with. The confrontation. The fight. The realization - and then, maybe, the consummation of their partnership. But no, Jack thought bitterly, he hadn't. He couldn't settle it with any of his other love interests - he even ended up flaking out with Liz after a while - and Dan was just another relationship that ended in failure. Until now. Even after one of them was dead and haunting the other, Jack found a way to royally screw things up. Regret of every word he had said to Dan in the infamous car ride took root in his chest and bloomed into even more horrible thoughts than the ones already in his head, thoughts of death and despair and other not right things that were very un-Jack and unwelcome.
"Jack!" Someone's voice poked in, annoyingly, through the swirl of thoughts eating at Jack's brain. He opened his eyes and found himself eye-to-eye with the partly-translucent apparition of Dan Stark. "You rang, buddy?"
Dan's name fell so easily from Jack's lips, he almost could be forgiven for forgetting circumstances at the moment. And then he reached out and grabbed Jack by the shoulders, and the other man felt so real and so solid that all common sense flew out of Jack's head as he kissed his dead partner without hesitation.
And then he realized, no, wait, cut it out, dead man in front of you and Jack pulled back to see Dan smirking, as pleased as spiked punch. "Well jeez, Bailey, you sure know how to tell a guy hello, don't you?"
"Hello, Dan," Jack said dumbly. He shook his head. "I - I don't understand. Why did you come back?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"You heard me back in the car. I was a total asshole!"
Dan shrugged. "Hey, don't sweat it. I mean, I probably said worse to you before, right?"
Jack gave his partner a look that questioned if the other man was serious. "No, I'm pretty sure that of all the shouting matches we've had, denying the other guy's very existence ranks at the very top, next to insulting your music collection."
A serious look appeared on Dan's face. "Whoa. You insulted my music? When?" His eyes widened. "You weren't dissing Foghat, were you?"
"There's a time and a place for this and it is not now!" Still, Jack thought, at least he knew one thing: this was without a doubt Dan Stark in front of him, one hundred percent authorized ghost of his dead partner and not-so-secret man crush. Bingo.
"Well, what do we do now?"
"I - I don't know." And, Jack realized, he didn't really care. He clung pitifully to his partner's shoulders, thankful that no one could look through the tent and see the two of them hang onto each other with their knees in the grass. So they sat together within the tent because they knew once the so-called spell was broken, the moment would end and they would never see each other again. They talked of work and old memories and friends and anything that was not about dying until they couldn't put off the inevitable anymore.
"You should just live in my trailer and we'd see each other all the time!" When Jack gave him a look, Dan explained. "Err, something about my trailer being my 'emotional tether' or some other mumbo-jumbo."
"Who told you that?"
"Dude in a nightshirt named Clarence. Who the hell else d'ya think told me?"
Jack let the jab slide. "I can't just move into your trailer and stay there forever. I can't - I can't spend the rest of my life hanging out with you like nothing's wrong."
"But you could." Dan sounded lonelier than he'd ever heard him, and each short little word struck Jack where it hurt most.
"I can't." He said it again - "I can't." He looked Dan in the eye as he said it and for the first time did not feel bad. This was, Jack realized, the right thing to do. Before his bravery could desert him, he continued. "Listen, it would be unfair to tie ourselves together when we know it can't work. You keep fading away, I have a job and a whole other world to think of. It won't be long until something really bad happens and we have to leave before we're ready."
"And I'm dead."
"Yes, and you're dead," Jack repeated. "I'd have a hard time telling everyone else my best friend is a ghost."
"Shit, they let Casper hang around, didn't they?"
"Why am I not surprised you're taking cues from old Saturday morning cartoons?"
"Hey." Dan grabbed Jack by the shoulder and squeezed, but it didn't feel as heavy as before; Jack looked down and realized he could see through Dan's palm to the fabric of his own shirt. "We're still partners, right?"
"Of course."
"Then do what you have to do, man."
Jack nodded. "Yeah."
"Just - you know, don't forget about old Dan, okay?"
Despite the tears threatening to gather behind his eyes, Jack laughed. "Don't be stupid, Dan, I won't forget about you any time soon."
Dan grinned. "And I'll make sure of it." With fading hands, he reached out and took hold of Jack's face as if making good on his promise.
A cold wind blew open the tent and in the second Jack flinched from it, the image of Dan reaching out disappeared, leaving him once again alone in the tent. Alone but not alone. He had a hard time explaining to Ruiz waiting outside what had happened but it didn't matter. Everything had resolved itself, somehow. And that was the only way Jack would see it.
Under the bright blue Dallas morning sky, two officers in uniform stood in the police parking lot about to answer a call, some smart ass kids on a 7-11 robbing spree. Naturally, it fell into their laps first. But first, a little introduction was in order.
"What's your name, rookie?"
The kid gulped. "Sanjay, sir."
The older man eyed up Sanjay, trying to guess the younger man's age on sight alone. "How old are you? Twenty?"
"Twenty-two, sir," Sanjay said, a little defensively. Jack couldn't blame him; he probably heard it all the time. Kid was barely growing whiskers on his chin. Still, records said he was an ace in the academy; therefore there he was as Jack Bailey's temp partner until the young man got his own experience in the field. "But I'll do good, sir, I promise!"
Jack half expected him to salute but he didn't. "Well, now's your chance to prove it. This isn't training camp anymore, Sanjay, it's the job. Real life situations. And for God's sake, stop calling me sir, I'm only ten years older than you." Well, maybe a little bit more, but Jack was feeling vain that morning.
Sanjay blinked. "What do I call you?"
"Jack."
He grinned. "Yes, s- Jack!"
"Good-"
"Jack?"
Jack's hand hovered impatiently over the handle of the car door. "Yes?"
Sanjay gulped audibly and the next words to come out of his mouth were filled with heavy trepidation. "I've just been wondering - why do you have two badges on your belt?"
Jack's hand moved to his belt where the second badge sat clipped on next to his own. "This? This used to belong to Dan Stark. He was my partner and he died in the line of duty over a year ago."
"Oh my God! I heard of him!" Sanjay's hands flew to his mouth and he flushed. "Sorry. There's been - stories - going around the academy."
"Yeah, well, stories don't even come close to the real Dan Stark." Jack smiled. "Maybe on the way to the crime scene, I'll tell you one."
Sanjay nodded. "Yes, sir! I mean, Jack!"
"All right then." In one quick motion, Jack slid out a pair of sunglasses from his pants pocket and put them on. "Come on, Sanjay, let's go bust some punks."
Less than a minute later with Jack Bailey behind the wheel, a police car quickly slid into early morning traffic, sirens raising a hell of a roar as they cleared themselves a path through the streams of cars, while somewhere in the distance, unseen, Dave Peverett was singing about taking it easy to no one in particular.