WALK AWAY

By Allegra

SUMMARY: Since Dov began dating Crystal Marks, he has been playing with fire and lying to those closest to him. How long before he gets burned and who will be there to pick up the pieces?

DISCLAIMERS: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They are the property of Shaw Media and the series' creators, Morwyn Brebner, Tassie Cameron and Ellen Vanstone.

SPOILERS : This is a Dov-centric fic based around the events of Series 3, Episodes 3 & 11 in particular. This story was written before episode 3:13 has aired, so does not take into account any events which may delve into Dov's relationship later in the series.

GENRE: H/C, Dov/Chris friendship

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I live for hurt/comfort fics, so consider this a warning for what is to come! I am testing the waters in the Rookie Blue fandom with a short story, in an attempt to ensure it doesn't languish in my WIP hell. Also, I don't know if many RB fans want H/C fics & I don't want to offend anyone. Episode 3.12 was great but, as a Dov fan, I was disappointed in the follow-up to his storyline. So here's a bit extra! It is not quite a one-shot but the plot is thin on the ground and I am really doing it for the shameless whumpage. If you do not like seeing characters hurt/tortured, I would suggest you hit the back button right now. For those sick puppies who wish to read on, I hope you enjoy it & please review .

NOTE: UK spelling throughout. Most importantly, I am no medic. I have tried my best with the medical jargon & protocol but it's been a long time since I've seen an episode of ER!

A figure stepped out of the darkness of the alley, his face half hidden in shadow. "You just couldn't walk away, could you, cop?"

Dov squinted, trying to make out the identity of the man in front of him. The truth was, he hardly needed to see the guy's face to know what was going on. His stomach flipped in his belly and he could feel his heartbeat ratcheting up. It must be a friend or member of Tyler Marks' gang, of that Dov was pretty sure. They had already warned him away from Crystal the only way they understood and the lesson had left Dov with a black eyes and two cracked ribs. That had taken some explaining, especially in the face of the lie he had told everyone about visiting the doctor, podiatrist, dentist... That had been a fortnight ago and Dov was still feeling the weight of keeping the truth from his friends. 'Lies beget more lies', wasn't that how the saying went? He was already losing track of how many stories he had fabricated to mask the truth.

He told Staff Sergeant Best and his friends that he was mugged and had foolishly tried to put up a fight, momentarily forgetting that he did not have the authority of a badge and a gun on his day off. It was just another blow to his ego that everyone accepted his stupidity so readily. Dov Epstein – regular fuck up and hothead, always certain to do the wrong thing at the wrong time. He hoped this moment would not be another one.

Taking a tentative step forward, Dov glanced around for witnesses or someone to call out to, but it was late and the street was deserted. "Listen, man, just hear me out..." he started, lifting his hands in surrender. Dov prayed he could appeal to some ounce of humanity beneath the mountain of rage in front of him. Within seconds, he felt strong arms pin him from behind and something hit him hard on the back of the head. For a moment, Dov's head swam and he struggled to remain conscious but he could not fight the black dots dancing in his vision and he succumbed to the darkness.

Chris Diaz was fuming by the time he reached the Division 15 locker room. Was it much to ask that his roommate and so-called best friend make sure he had the truck back home by 8am? It wasn't often that he asked Dov to pull his finger out and do anything but, as with so many things these days, Epstein managed to let him down. In fact, he had not even come home last night and somehow that pissed Chris off even more. Images flashed through his mind of Dov 'getting over' his break up with Sue using some one night stand picked up at a bar halfway across the city.

"Wow, I could use a face like that to back me up on the street. Want to ride with me, Diaz?" Swarek drawled, his mouth twitching into a half smile at Chris' startled expression.

Diaz stammered, "Uh...no, I mean yes...I'm fine. I'm not..."

Sam waited to see if a sentence was forthcoming but finally put Chris out of his misery. "On second thoughts, speaking English is kind of more of a priority for me so maybe I'll take Peck."

Chris could feel his face reddening and he cursed under his breath as Sam disappeared out of view. "Pull yourself together, Diaz," he muttered. He hated looking anything less than the perfect police officer around his superiors and he certainly did not want a reputation for having a temper. Practising his best smile in the small locker room mirror, he straightened his shirt and headed into the melee. Dov and his emotional crises would just have to wait.

Dov was roughly dragged from the back of a van. He madly tried to put a radius on where he was by calculating how long they had been driving and at what sort of speed, but time was relative. It felt like hours since he had been accosted outside Crystal's apartment block. Through the rough hessian bag pulled down over his head, he could make out lighting up ahead and, from the echoing sounds of his kidnappers' voices, they were in a warehouse or some kind of cavernous space. His head throbbed incessantly and Dov could feel the stickiness of congealing blood in his hair.

He tried to steady his nerves but his efforts failed as soon as he began wondering what Marks' friends planned to do with him. If they were not content to just beat him up on the street corner then the young officer did not want to think about the worse fate he imagined lay in store for him. Dov had seen enough police reports from the area to know that these guys were not afraid to deliver their own brand of vigilante justice.

A heavy hand shoved him between the shoulder blades and Dov stumbled forwards. His wrists were zip tied painfully in front of him and he had barely any way of breaking his fall. He dropped awkwardly to his knees, his knee caps jarring hard on damp concrete. Dov concentrated on breathing, as each panting inhalation became more of a struggle beneath the hessian fabric. He tried to think of what he was going to say. He knew what they wanted...but he cared about Crystal. He had to make these people realise that. He couldn't back down.

Somewhere amid his mental ramblings, Dov noticed that silence had fallen around him. Apart from the sounds of dripping water and the distant whizzing of cars on wet asphalt, there was nothing. Dov took a deep, steadying breath, "Hello?"

Suddenly, the hessian bag was snatched from his head, leaving him blinking owlishly in the glaring, white light of a single bulb dangling overhead. A large man was towering over him, a balaclava pulled down to conceal his features from identification. Somehow, that reassured Dov. If the man did not want his identity known, that meant there was a chance that he would leave Epstein alive to tell his tale.

"Officer Epstein, right?" the man asked, his voice loud and booming in the vaulted space.

"Yes..." Dov replied, swallowing the tremor in his voice. He looked from the man to a pair of similarly dressed young men standing to one side. It was definitely some kind of warehouse, corners filled with rope and cargo debris. "Listen..."

"No, I think it is time you listened to me. We tried to teach you, Epstein. But you just don't seem to be understanding the lesson." The man leaned down, his lips inches from Dov's ear. "This time we are going to help you out. But don't worry, you are going to pass this exam with flying colours. Hell, you might even get a gold star."

Dov's throat tightened and he had to force the words out. "I know that this situation is fucked up...but I really care about Crystal. I wish to God that I could turn back time and do things differently. But I can't. I can't do that." His voice trailed off, losing conviction as he realised how pathetic that must sound to a bunch of thugs intent on wreaking revenge on their dead friend.

The man pulled back, standing straight so that he could peer down his nose at the officer knelt before him in a crude parody of supplication. Dark eyes met Dov's pleading grey ones and, for a fraction of a second, Dov thought he had actually got through to the man. Then, the leader jerked his head towards the two men standing by. Without a word, they hauled Dov to his feet and pulled him upright.

He struggled against them but did not stand a chance against two burly men, especially with a probable concussion and his hands trussed up until he lost all circulation. In a matter of seconds, his hands were hauled above his head and the zip ties slung over a hook. "No, listen..." he blurted out, madly searching for something he could say that would save him from what lay ahead. But, in truth, there was none. Peck had warned him of the dangers of getting involved with Crystal but Dov had lied to her and taken the risks. Now, he was paying the price.

Tyler Marks was dead because of him. No one could blame anyone more than Dov blamed himself for that day in the convenience store. Tyler was never coming back so perhaps this punishment fitted the crime.

The man stepped forward, still a good foot taller than Dov, and whispered, "My best friend is dead because of you. You cops think you're immune, that you can go around killing in the name of the law. Well, this is my courtroom. Take the sentence like a man...if you can."

Without warning, Dov felt his arms stretched above him as a rope pulley lifted the hook further from the ground. He struggled to keep his toes on the concrete floor beneath but another jerk lifted him clear off the ground and Dov was left swinging, completely at the mercy of men driven by hatred, vengeance burning in their eyes. The muscles in his arms burned under his body weight and Dov instinctively tried to grip the metal hook with his hands to alleviate some of the pain, but there was no escape.

Then came the first blow.

Chris Diaz's shift had been uneventful – desk work, pounding the streets and picking on petty criminals or minor traffic infractions. His annoyance at Dov had worn off but it had given rise to questions about whether it was time to find another roommate. He and Epstein were great friends but, when it came down to who was doing the shopping or changing the toilet roll, Diaz found himself turning into a nagging house husband. He hated it; hated Dov for being so forgetful and inconsiderate but hated himself even more for the character he ended up playing.

However, there were two major problems attached to looking for a new roommate: how to break it to Dov and still keep their friendship intact and who to replace him with. The first was definitely the hardest and perhaps the principle reason Chris had not considered ousting his friend from the nest sooner.

Ever since the Tyler Marks' shooting, Dov had been all over the place. He was unreliable, thoughtless and distracted. For a while, Chris had tried to be a good friend. He couldn't imagine how hard it must be to live with shooting someone erroneously but, when Dov refused to open up and behaved outwardly as if everything was okay, it became harder and harder to deal with the fallout. How could you help someone who was determined to ignore the problem? Then, there had been the break up with Sue, who was probably the best thing to happen to Dov since joining the force. He had even tried to make amends with Tyler's sister and got himself in even more trouble. He seemed to be on a path of self-destruction and Chris did not know how much longer he could stand by and watch, especially when Dov's thoughtlessness was affecting him directly.

Like today. Staff Sergeant Best had caught him arriving late. Chris Diaz prided himself on being punctual, reliable and willing. If Dov hadn't taken off with his truck, he would have been on time as always. It was damned typical that the Sergeant would see him on the one day that he broke his track record. Plus, now he was forced to walk home in the rain because he didn't have a ride. Chris prayed that his truck was outside the apartment by the time he got home or Dov was going to be packing his bags tonight.

Half an hour later, soaked to the skin and freezing cold, Chris stared at the empty space where his truck ought to be. Twenty four hours?! What the hell was Dov playing at? Jamming his key in the front door lock, he squelched upstairs. Right now, he wanted nothing more than a hot shower. "Dov?" he called, not really expecting an answer. In fact, he hoped he did not get one. If Dov was here without the truck, Chris did not want to contemplate what state it must be in and where it had been left.

After a long soak under the hottest shower he could muster, Chris set about fixing dinner with the bizarre array of items left in the refrigerator. Thunder chimed in over the heavy sound of rain and he almost missed the buzz of his cell phone vibrating on the counter top. There was no caller ID and Chris was tempted to leave it. If he did not know the caller well enough to have their number in his phone, he wasn't interested in speaking to them right now. By the time he had washed his hands of tomato juices, the person had called off. A few moments later, the phone began vibrating once more and the same number glared from the display.

Against his better judgement, Chris picked up. "Yes?" There was background noise, some kind of scuffling. "Hello?" There was no answer but a rasping sound , almost like heavy breathing was faint as if the person were holding the phone away from their mouth. "Who is this?" Chris demanded. The breathing sound was gone and there was only indiscernible white noise. It sounded like someone had left the phone in their pocket and had called a random number so Diaz ended the call and went back to his dinner.

He was settled in front of the television, listening to the torrential rain beating against the window, when his cell phone rang again. The same number showed up and Chris picked it up, wearily, ready to bawl out whoever was wasting his time at the other end. "Whoever this is, you should know that I am a police officer and...!"

"Chris?" came a thin voice from the other end of the line.

"Dov?" Chris replied, shocked. Then, he remembered all the anger he had been feeling earlier and a torrent was unleashed that he almost had no control of. "Where the hell have you been?! I was late for shift without the truck, you missed work. Best is going to have your hide..."

"Chris...will you come get me?" Dov asked, his voice barely audible above the sound of the television.

Diaz hit the mute button and shook his head, "You're kidding me, right?! You go off on some bender to try and not deal with your shit, leave me out to dry and now you expect me to come running to nurse you back from a hangover?! You are unbelievable, you know that..." Chris stopped short when he heard a hacking cough from the other end of the line and the sound of Dov's laboured breathing. "Dov?" he called, a hint of anxiety betraying his angry tirade. "Are you there?"

"Please..." Dov breathed, his voice cracking with desperation. "It's not like that..."

Chris could feel himself caving. He could give Dov the full 3D, surround sound experience of his wrath once he got him home. But, no matter how useless his friend was, Diaz was never going to leave Epstein to puke his guts up on the sidewalk in weather like this. "Fine, fine, where are you? I'll have to take a cab, so you owe me. Where are you?" He waited for an answer. "Dov? Don't pass out on me, man. Where are you?"

Something akin to a whimper escaped Dov's lips, "I don't know. I don't know where I am."

Dov was a lot of things but outwardly emotional was not one of them. He was a happy drunk and he avoided deep and meaningful conversations as if they carried the bubonic plague. It scared Chris more than he liked to hear his friend sounding so vulnerable. Maybe the dam had finally broken and Dov was confronting his feelings about the shooting, Sue, his career. "Okay, okay. Look around you. Is there a landmark or anything you recognise?" Chris pressed the phone to his ear, listening to the wheezing breaths coming from the other end. "Dov! Look around you. What do you see?"

"Nothing...there's nothin..." Dov murmured, distractedly.

Chris fought back the urge to shout at his incoherent friend. He could tell that Dov was in a bad way, probably self inflicted, but he needed to find some way of getting to him. Suddenly, an idea burst into his head. "Okay, just hang on, man. I'm going to ask the station to pull up the GPS from your cell phone. I will be with you soon, okay? Dov?"

"'kay," came the weak reply.

"It'll take a few minutes. Just hang in there, buddy. Dov? Don't turn the phone off." Chris waited for some acknowledgement, worried that his friend had passed out. "Dov?! You hearing me?"

"Yeah...," Dov said, his voice thinning to a whisper. "Chris?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't take too long, huh?" Chris could hear the crack in Dov's voice as he spoke followed by a sharp intake of breath.

"I won't. Just sit tight." Chris desperately wanted to stay on the line, but the apartment did not have a land line. He quickly wrote down the cell phone number, his brain half registering why Dov wasn't using his own phone. Diaz dialled the station and immediately relayed his badge number and request, trying to sound as authoritative as possible. He didn't think finding a drunk colleague who had missed a whole day of work was going to stand up as a good use of police time. Fortunately, whoever answered did not seem to know him and processed the information quickly. "Yes, Officer Diaz. I have tracked the cell phone to a warehouse on the corner of Bathurst and Lake Shore Boulevard West. Would you like some backup?"

"No, thank you. That's all I need." Chris grabbed his jacket and pulled the collar up around his neck in a vain attempt to keep the wet weather out. There was a cab already driving down the street and he practically ran out in front of the vehicle to hail it, stabbing in Dov's number as he jumped in. "Take me to Bathurst and Lake Shore Boulevard West please. Go as fast as you can." Dov's phone rang, each unanswered tone adding fuel to Chris' mounting worry.

In the back of the cab, he had time to pull together the pieces of the puzzle. Dov prided himself on his work and he had never missed a day of work without clearing it with the Staff Sergeant first. He might have enjoyed his fair share of one night stands but he knew how to find his way home, no matter how wasted he was. What was Epstein doing with a stranger's phone in a warehouse far from any bar? Chris could feel a knot building in his gut. He contemplated calling Division for backup but, if Dov really was just drunk, they would both look like prize idiots and Chris would have got his friend in major trouble at the station, too. No, it was better to wait. He was just overreacting.

END OF PART ONE

Please review! As a newbie to this fandom, I am unsure of whether anyone is keen to read more & feedback is hugely appreciated...and the muse monster will definitely be inspired by it, too!