Disclaimer: They're not my characters and no profit is being made (and they aren't my episode titles, either, though I actually think "Flying Down to Oxnard" might have made an interesting episode) .

Author's Note: Months ago, Liz issued a challenge--use all the episode titles in a story. I got through season one and then threw in the towel. It was filed at the yahoo GullsWay group (where there is a lot of actual good stuff as well, if any of you haven't already joined). Anyway, here 'tis, titles in bold.

Two Men in a Car

By L. M. Lewis

It was soon to be a dark and stormy night. They were rolling down the PCH, lightning illuminating the western sky as the dark clouds swallowed up what was left of the twilight. One-one thousand. Mark heard the first rumble of thunder.

"It's close," he said. "I told you we should've taken the truck."

"Well it's not my fault you drive a goofy thing that doesn't even have a decent roof on it," Hardcastle groused.

"That's fine, coming from you," Mark saw his grouse and raised him a grumble. "I think the 'Vette's ragtop really did go to rags a while back. I've never seen it up, not once. I'd say you're a man in a glass car."

"You mean glass house?"

"That'd be a cliché. I kinda like car better. You are," he squinted for a moment at a flash of very close lightning and an immediate thunderclap, "a man in a crystal car. So if you're going to throw stones, you'd better get ready to—"

A deeper rumble caught them both in mid-pointless argument. Mark looked up into the now spattering raindrops and suddenly shouted, "Duck!"

He swung the wheel sideways barely skirting the cascade of rocks that had spilled into the roadway.

"Damn," he panted, wrestling the vehicle over onto the opposite shoulder, skidding to a halt only inches from the dark void on the ocean side. He caught his breath and finally said, "You okay?" He glanced to his right. Hardcastle hadn't bitched about him almost going off the road.

Of course not. The man had taken a rock to the head. He was lolling slightly, eyes still closed, his face pale, aside from the fast-purpling bruise on his forehead. Mark swallowed hard and reached out to touch the lump. Miles from nowhere with rocks on the roadway and an unconscious man in the passenger seat--things were going downhill fast.

"Hey, Judge?" he said, jostling the man gently. "Enough with the naptime. We got a little problem here."

It shouldn't have surprised him—they didn't call him 'Hardcase' for nothing. The older man was already blinking owlishly into the black night and muttering, "Used up all the hot water again."

"It's not a shower," Mark said, sounding as relieved as he felt. "It's rain, and it only comes in one temperature."

"What the hell happened?" Hardcastle said, reaching up to his lumpy noggin.

"You got hit by a widow-maker," Mark said. "One of the rocks from that slide." He pointed out at the highway before them.

Hardcastle grunted. "Thought I'd gone a couple of rounds with a boxer."

"Whaddaya think?" Mark studied the roadway. "'Once again into the breach?'"

"That breach looks a little narrow," Hardcastle squinted. "Even for this thing. You'll have to turn it around." He seemed to be talking a little slower.

Mark looked dubious. "In the dark, among the rocks, with a thirty-foot drop on one side? That'll be interesting. Don't suppose you're up to getting out and dealing with some navigation. Nothing too vigorous."

"Shure," Hardcastle said, slurring slightly. "Who the heck says I'm not up to vigorish?"

"Never mind," Mark said leaning over to look a little more closely at the man's pupils. He noticed he lump was larger, too.

Then he looked out past Hardcastle and down into the black void. He put the Coyote into reverse and started maneuvering. "Careful of that last step," he muttered to himself. "It's a killer."

Two scrapes and a close call later, he had them turned back in the direction they'd come.

He swallowed hard and awarded himself an 'A' for effort, but only a couple of 'B's for style and execution. His three-point turn had been more like seven or eight.

"Back to Oxnard," he announced, "unless we find a hospital sooner."

"We'll just ask Frank to run the prince."

"Huh?"

"Of the guy who slugged me," Hardcastle said slowly. "Big fat guy."

"I think maybe we'll get you a CT."

"What city?"

"Not a city, a . . . oh, never mind," Mark said, impatient enough to have hotshoes, even though he knew these were no kind of conditions to be flying down the road to Oxnard."

"Rio Bravo," Hardcastle mumbled. "Isn't that on tonight?"

"Just another coupla miles," Mark said anxiously, "I think the road should be pretty clear once we're 'round the next bend."

He had the impression he was mostly talking to himself. From the judge he was only hearing snatches of that old song. He failed to place it for a moment, as out of context as it was. "Jethro Tull," he finally muttered.

"Huh?" Hardcastle said groggily, as he broke off.

"'The Whistler's' the name of that song. I didn't know you knew any Jethro Tull."

"There's a lot of things you don't know about me, kiddo," the judge said with a note of mystery and an attempted knowing tap of his finger on the side of his nose. He missed. He looked at the wayward, uncooperative digit and said sadly to himself, "Pride—Mr. Hardcastle—goes before a fall." He looked at his finger, just a bit cross-eyed. "We'll send the fat guy's prints to Washington, have him ID'd in no time."

"Right," Mark said, willing to be appeasing. They'd passed a school and a gas station and were now well into town. He thought about stopping to ask for directions, but decided that even these dire circumstances didn't cal for him to break the guy code.

"It's a scandal," Hardcastle muttered darkly. "Guys going around whacking people on the head. It's like we're in Georgia."

Mark glanced sharply to the side, trying to figure that one out.

"Twice," Hardcastle added cryptically, then he quietly passed out again.

"Judge?" Mark said frantically. "Damnit." He looked up again just in time to catch a sign at the street corner. Blue, the letter H, and an arrow. Never was any sign more welcome. He cut sharply left and within a block he saw the entrance to the emergency room. He maneuvered past the ambulances, parked with their motors still running.

00000

It was a bright and sunny day. They were rolling down the PCH, heading for their somewhat delayed homecoming.

"And then when you woke up again, in the emergency room, you kept saying to the nurse 'Did you see the one who slugged me?' That and some weird stuff about Georgia. I'm surprised you got away without having a psychiatrist look at you. Really." Mark shook his head in exaggerated disbelief.

"And you probably thought it was pretty neat, me acting goofy, huh? It's all on account of us riding around in a car that doesn't have a roof, and this one happens to be yours, so I think I'm holdin' you responsible."

"No way," Mark countered. "We're in California; lots of cars don't have roofs and most guys with convertibles would at least try to have a sense of humor about something like this."

"It was funny, huh?"

Mark frowned. He didn't really want to admit he'd been scared stiff while it had been happening. It was only now, with everything back to what passed for normal, that he could even think about it without being terrified. But that wouldn't do as a subject for conversation.

"So," he said, deftly turning the conversation toward something that would probably involve yelling, "tell me what happened in Georgia."