Title - Someone To Kill For 1/?

Disclaimer - The TW characters are not mine, of course, just borrowing.

Summary - This is a prequel/sequel (yes, both!) to the one parter Something Sinister in Common 1/1. It revolves around the events leading up to, surrounding, and following the murder of Matthew Walker. It's told from the revolving, varying points of view of everyone (Bosco, Faith, Sul, Ty, Cruz, etc...) as they all struggle to deal with the trial and the ramifications of Bosco's actions.

Warnings - Language, violence...

-------------------------------------------

The day had been pretty much routine as Bosco and I plodded through the automatic doors at Mercy, having been called to a rape just moments earlier. Bosco hadn't been thrilled to answer the call. But then again, who ever was? The thing was that Bosco hadn't been back on the streets more than an hour before the usual barrage of calls came flooding over our radio. I don't think he expected a break, or even wanted one. Ever since Lieu put him on desk duty for two months after he came back from the hospital, he'd been pleading and prodding to get back out on the streets. I do think, however, that the full brunt of the job really came back and hit him all of a sudden. Like, he had to be reminded that you can sleep through problems, but they'll still be there when you wake up.

Bosco wandered ahead of me, lightly padding his way to the front desk. Me, I lingered behind a half dozen feet. Desk duty may have been hell for Bosco, but I was seriously considering it. I finally trudged up to meet him, just as he finished joking with Proctor about her having ruined his day, or something. I studied her solemn face, and then glanced over at Bosco, asking if he'd still been able to keep up his cheery morale that he'd been trying to since the shift had started. He looked back at me for a couple seconds and frowned before shifting his attention back to Proctor.

She peered at Bosco with a grave look, before glancing over at me with the same forlorn expression. It was a rare look – not the usual look of being temporarily upset at someone else's misfortune that would normally take over our features when on a call like this. It was somewhat familiar, though, and it didn't take too long for me to realize it was the same look Davis and I had gotten when Carlos had been wrongfully accused years earlier, or before that, when Bobby's condition was discovered to be worse than we'd expected. It was an appearance that seemed to have shown up during our careers when someone close to us was hurt, or in trouble.

I shifted my eyes worriedly toward Bosco, who Proctor seemed to be focusing her attention on.

"You couldn't have called Davis, and that new rookie? Fooney, right?" Bosco looked at me for confirmation, and I laughed slightly at his mistake.

"Finney," I corrected, wondering if he'd honestly still not known Brendan's name after eight weeks. Then again, it was Bosco asking.

"Finney, Fooney…same thing," He defended.

He complained about us having been ready to take a lunch when the disheartening call had come over the radio, but I was too busy trying to decode Mary's face to pay much attention to him. The word "lunch", I caught, but it didn't sound as welcoming as it would have normally. The whole situation irked me. Something was up, and even Bosco noticed. His playful interruptions and brief laughs were just fronts he put up to avoid hearing the truth. Shifting nervously back and forth on his feet was also a common aspect of his actions when he sensed something was wrong. I'd seen it when Faith had been shot, and when we had to tell him that Mikey had been killed.

"I called you two because…" Proctor spoke up, but then stopped just as quickly. Bosco glanced at me and then back at her, rocking his heels from side to side - probably wishing he could pull a Dorothy and disappear.

"Because what?" he prompted abruptly.

I stared at his feet. Back, forth, back, forth.

Proctor was unable to finish; she just slid a clipboard under Bosco's fingers and turned and walked away. Bosco glanced at me questioningly, and all I could do was motion for him to look at the paper that lay before his hand, though I knew it was the last thing in the world either of us wanted to do.

I followed his eyes as they gazed down at the sheet of paper - At the room number, then at the name. That's when I saw his mouth slack open a few inches, and the color drain from his face. His voice sounded foreign and unfamiliar as he whimpered my name. He then held the clipboard over his head and then flung it over the counter and on to the tiled floor. I stood unfazed by his actions, but a neighboring nurse cringed as the plastic loudly met the floor next to her and splintered in two.

"Son of a bitch!" he shrieked, directing his stare from the thrown object to down the hall. He whirled around swiftly and started on his search for room 516. I pushed off the counter and followed behind him quickly, hoping to at least act as a mediator between him and any hospital staff he might happen to piss off during his angry rampage through the corridor.

I could feel dozens of eyes on us; people who had frozen in their tracks at the strident, vulgar outburst. Two nurses wheeling a stretcher toward an elevator had come to a halt, and I watched the elevator doors close before they reached it. Instead, their attention was glued to the two of us, but mostly to Bosco as he stormed menacingly along. One poor receptionist had dropped her pen in fright when the clipboard came dangerously close to hitting her. She was glancing around nervously as if someone should call security or something.

Call security on two cops, I scoffed to myself. That was a funny thought.

Finally, everyone removed their burning stares from Bosco's back and resumed their activities. I guess they felt relieved that he was heading in the opposite direction. I, on the other hand, was doing all I could to keep up with him and follow his wrath.

We stopped outside the room; the number 516 was labeled above the door in placid white letters. I'd noticed the irony of this before; how each and every door was marked with its own number, in a clean, calm font that seemed to mislead those on the outside and disguise the pain that hid behind the entrance.

Room 516 was familiar – we'd taken reports in that very one a few times over the years. This time, the feeling was different as we stood before the glass window, peering in through a bent blind. The feeling, to me, was one that could never be accurately explained to someone who hadn't experienced it for themselves. It was an unsettling sense of despair, and I knew that Bosco, as he stood next to me, had to have felt the same, and yet a hundred times worse.

He was hunched over, his fists resting on the slanted sill of the window, perhaps aiding him in supporting his weight. It was situations like these where you feel heavier than you've ever felt, and you either need to collapse, or find some sort of standing assistance. I watched him with experienced eyes – a scene of fiery destruction flashed before me, and I reflected back on the night when I lost Tatiana. How I'd hit the pavement so forcefully, my kneecaps seemed to have pleaded beneath my weight. My legs had gone numb and my hand to my mouth, and I'd felt as if a dozen tons of concrete had been emptied onto my shoulders. The feeling had been no different even years before that, when Ty's father had fallen dead right before me.

Looking at Bosco, his eyes already red-rimmed, I didn't imagine that's how he felt, I knew that's how he felt. I ransacked my mind, hoping to find a few words of consolation, but he'd heard it all before. He'd had more tragedy hit this close to home in thirteen years, than I'd had to deal with in thirty-four. So I just remained silent, hoping he'd go in soon before I had to push him.

"What do I do, Sul?" he asked, glancing up at me.

I contorted my face sadly at his question, but more so at his tone. It sounded bleak and helpless – a tone that very rarely laced his voice. It was painful to hear him that way, when - whether it was a practical one or not - he was usually the first to pipe up with a solution.

"Go in," was all I could mutter, and I extended my arm out toward the bordering door.

------------------------------------------------------

I sat on the edge of the bed, studying the patterns of my jeans I'd just pulled on as if their design was something spectacular to scrutinize. But I was just looking for distraction; just some place to look other than at the bland, sterile walls of the confining hospital room where I was sitting, and waiting.
The room was cold and white, and eerily familiar. I'd taken reports in the very same room. Even the sparse furniture was arranged just as it had always been, and the same insipid painting of a ship at sea still hung on the wall. I peered at it. It decorated about a foot of wall space and was stroked with pale colors. Someone had probably hung it up a long time ago to brighten the mood. It had been a meager attempt.

I shifted my gaze from the painting and down to my feet. I was clicking them nervously against the steel frame. The only thing that had changed, I realized, was that it was me perched on the coarse pallid sheets; my mind in fog. And each time I tried to focus on something else – something as simple as the clock that was posted over the door – my mind would rewind to the attack and ruthlessly replay the events in my head. I shook my head back and forth, hoping I could shake the thought away entirely. When that failed, I closed my eyes tightly. Perhaps if I didn't look at the torn and fraying end of my shirt or at the ominous stain of blood it was adorned with, I could just pretend nothing had happened. If only it were that simple.

I kept my head down and a stare on my feet, letting my hair fall loosely over my face. What had I done wrong? I wondered, squinting my eyes in an effort to keep the oncoming tears from escaping.

Did I not fight? Kick hard enough? Scream loud enough? No. I'd done all of those things, I knew. My mistake had come long before the attack itself.

Through closed eyes, I felt the incident return with the surreal feeling of a flashback. Only did I snap from the haunting recall when I heard the soft click of the door opening, and I slowly looked up to see who was entering. It wasn't difficult - even with my vision blurred by tears, I quickly made out the figure that was creeping toward me. He wasn't an unfamiliar officer as I'd hoped he'd be – one who would simply take the report and let me leave; one who didn't know I was a cop; one who didn't know me - but of all people, it was him that I needed to walk through the door. Because as I sat there, shivering and still slowly tapping my feet, I felt like dissolving into tiny fragments; like crumbling. And I didn't want to crumble alone.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I peered through the window, angling my eyes to see through the narrow blind and into the room. Bosco was taking tentative steps toward the bed, clenching and unclenching his fists nervously. His mouth was open slightly, but it didn't look like he was saying anything, and neither did she. It figured, though. They had this way of speaking without ever saying so much as a word to the other. It was an ability that had always been beyond Davis and me. We understood each other, sure, but we need words to do so. We just couldn't walk around like mimes all day, glancing in each other's eyes as if they were some sort of northern stars. These two, on the other hand, I believe did exactly that.

I glanced despondently at a passing nurse, and then turned my attention back toward the window. Bosco had stopped himself just a couple feet away, and had stuffed his restless hands into his pocket. His face was hidden because he hung his head, but I'm pretty sure I could have summed up his expression.

-----------------------------------------------------------

It was a rare instance when I couldn't predict Bosco's actions before they even took place, but this was one of those instances. If I were to have guessed, I'd have said that he'd come barreling through the door at top speed, demanding to know who, what, where and when; and then would set off for vengeance. Instead, though, he stepped toward me indolently, hands in his pockets and his face sporting a frozen and mournful mien. It was one of his uncommon demeanors; the one that was only elicited by something incredibly dispiriting, and I felt guilty knowing the situation had evoked it.

As I sat there, I dreaded an inundation of questions and the request for an explanation. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about it; remember it. I wanted to do just the opposite and forget it – drown it away in a deluge of overdue tears. And I'd never been more thankful that he knew me well enough to know he should hold off on any interrogation. He didn't ask me what, where or when – or even who. Instead he was silent. He gazed at me pensively before pulling me protectively against his chest, assuming the burden of my weight along with his own that it appeared, by his unsteady legs, he was already struggling with. I slid my arms around his neck, using him as a crutch while every muscle in my body seemed to forfeit. I burrowed my head into his shoulder, finally feeling that I could abandon any sign of a brave façade, and cried.

----------------------------------------

I shut the back door of the squad after they both climbed out and began walking to the entrance. Midway, Bosco turned hesitantly.

"Thanks, Sul…" he started, trailing off. He was peering down at the sidewalk and tapping his shoe on the cement.

"No problem. And take your time," I motioned to my radio. "I told Central we went 10-63 when we got to Mercy."

He nodded slightly, then raised his head and gave me a weak smile. I returned the nod and stepped off the sidewalk, lumbering back to the opposite side of 55-Charlie where I pulled the driver's door open. I watched them, their hands intertwined, as they turned back to the door. They were confounding to observe - me and Davis had agreed years earlier. The simplest of things could send them at each other's throat, but the most harrowing of tragedies – ones that would split the average person apart – somehow drove them together again.

I kept my gaze on them until they disappeared into his apartment building, and then I slid into my seat, wondering what, if anything, could tear them apart for good.

-------------------------------------------

I sat awkwardly, my arms pulled around my chest, as I watched him ransack his fridge and finally with three frosty-looking diet sodas. It hadn't been more than twenty minutes ago that I'd answered his predictable "Who?" as we'd left the hospital, and then rode silently with him and Sully to his apartment, dreading further questions during the entire drive. Thankfully, none had been asked. Not for a lack of desire, though, but rather because his teeth had been so tightly clenched, I don't think he could have spoken if he'd tried.

"Catch," he ordered suddenly.

I looked up just as a silver can was barreling toward my face at a dangerous rate of speed. Reflexively, my hand shot up in defense as if the imposing object were a skel of some sort, and swiftly caught it out of midair. I balanced the cold can on my knee, running my fingers over its cold condensation, expecting an apology of some kind for having just nearly knocked me out. Nothing. Instead he marched over, sipping his drink in one hand and waving the remaining can in front of my face.

"You think Sully likes this?"

"What?" I asked, pulling my head back and annoyed that now I'd nearly be struck twice by an explosive can of soda.

"Does Sully drink this? Diet?"

I shook my head. "You known him thirteen years and you don't know if he drinks Diet Coke?"

"No. Do you?"

"No," I confessed, keeping my lips pursed. The onset of his infectious laugh, however, easily broke my solemn expression and I joined in briefly. I knew he was only trying to lighten the mood, and it had actually worked to some degree, until the weight of the situation proved too imposing to alleviate with a joke.

"Probably not, huh?" Bosco sighed, meandering to the counter where he relinquished what would have been Sully's refreshment. "I don't even really like Diet either. Ma brought it over though."

I pulled my knee to my chest and rested my chin on it, his words fading into a collage of muddled words that I couldn't make out. Ignoring my objections, my mind drifted back to the previous evening. The entire ordeal had dwindled down to a ruthless onslaught of haunting images. And through the struggle, a glinting badge would always deter my sights from his face - though I knew clear well who he was - and the gun he'd been wielding beside my temple had serviced to shut me up.

From the corner of my eye, I caught notice of an impending strong and threatening arm – fingers laced around a shimmering silver object. While in any other instance I'd have faced the threat and fought back, I instead cowered and raised my hands before my face in a feeble attempt to shield myself.

"Hey," a familiar voice broke in. Cautiously, I snapped from what had proven to be another flashback, and opened my eyes. I found myself staring into Bosco's face, a concerned expression spreading over his features.

"You okay?"

I nodded quickly, hoping he wouldn't question me, and squinted my eyes together to abort yet another surge of tears that were threatening to spill over. He took the seat beside me and I felt the cushions sink beneath his weight, drawing us closer.

"I was just passing you this. You dropped it," he told me, handing me my Diet Coke. I pulled it suspiciously from his grasp. It was silver, and shimmering. I shook my head, feeling as though I was going completely insane.

"You want me to stay?"

"What?" I asked, looking up from the drink.

"Do you want me to stay? I can stay," he reached for his radio. "Sully!"

"No," I pushed his hand from his mouth. "You don't have to stay. I'm fine."
I turned away, fearing I'd already become an encumbrance.

"Never mind," he mumbled into his radio. He stood up. "I'll get off early."

I shook my head. "I don't need to stay here."

"Yeah, you do," he told me flatly, his tone exact; more of an order than advice.

"No, I don't," I repeated, rising to my feet, though my voice spoke an entirely different story. It sounded weak and helpless, and it quivered with every word. I wasn't fooling anyone, least of all him. If I'd ever needed him, I did now - and more than ever.

"I don't want you to be alone," he declared, walking to the door. "I have something to do back at the House."

His voice cracked, and his hands clenched. He was resuming that silent, icy persona, and it was a much more dangerous state of mind than when he outwardly displayed his rage. Instead, he bottled it up inside of him; letting his outside appearance evidence nothing more than a cold stare. But eventually, all of his anger and immeasurable frustration would come out in the most volatile way. I'd seen it before when he'd left Rose's abusive boyfriend with multiple broken ribs and countless other fractures.

In his current state, Bosco was a time bomb.

"Bosco," I warned. "Don't do anything you're gonna regret."

"I'm only gonna regret it if I don't do something," he faced me one last time before pulling the door open and then yanking it shut as he left. I jumped, startled by the slam, and my heartbeat sped up rapidly, as if trying to escape the confines of my chest.

I'd mistaken the arm of a man I trusted more than anyone else, for the monster that had attacked me; and a can of Diet Coke for a knife, or some other weapon.

A door had closed and my heart was pounding its own way into shock.

If a part of me felt obligated to rush after Bosco and dissuade him of whatever vengeful plan he held, a stronger part of me was with him all the way.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh, look," came a snide voice.

Bosco and I had not taken more than three steps into the House when, who else, but Officer Finney marched up and found something with which to incriminate us.

"How was your two-hour lunch?" he continued, glancing at both of us, and then to Davis who was coming up behind him. Davis looked amused, but his face fell when he caught my expression. He widened his eyes, hinting for an explanation. I raised my eyebrows in response, indicating I'd elaborate "Later", and he nodded.

So maybe we didn't need words all the time.

"Mind your own business, Finney," I growled. "You two aren't doing a helluva lot of good not bein' out on the streets, are you?"

"We got a prisoner," he said proudly, beaming. "Davis just put him in Holding."

I glanced at Davis, as if to confirm his account. He nodded and shrugged.

"Two-hour lunch?" Lieu asked, hanging up the phone. We all turned in the direction of his voice in unison.

"Yeah," Finney glanced at me. "55-David's been ducking calls for two hours."

I rolled my eyes, receiving a half-hearted grin from Ty as he hid behind Finney, then shook my head and sighed. Brendan looked like an eight-year-old, pointing his finger at someone who had just called him a name, or stolen his toy. He had a lot to learn.

And how to tell time might be a good place to start, because we hadn't been two hours.

"And in return," I defended, motioning to Holding. "You got our collar." I remembered the call we'd received for the fleeing thief, which had been much closer to 82nd, than where 55-Charlie had been at the time.

"Is that right?" Lieu interrupted, referencing Finney's accusation.

I looked at Bosco, who was eyeing Finney with a deadlier-than-usual, pissed off expression. I didn't doubt that he was silently chastising Davis for not making him keep his mouth shut. He finally broke his stare away from Brendan, and slowly swept his hands through the air and toward Swersky, indicating I'd gotten the honors of telling him why we took so long. I shook my head in objection, and he promptly returned with a fierce nod. We continued exchanging angry facial signals until I shrugged in defeat and watched him saunter glumly up the stairs.

I ambled several more feet up to Lieu's desk, wishing I knew more about the incident than just the name of a faceless dirty cop. And wondering what the hell good we were doing if we couldn't even protect one of our own.

--------------------------------------------------------

I waited until Bosco emerged from the locker room before tentatively following him down the stairs.

"Cruz is taking me home, Lieu," he called, tossing his sweatshirt over his shoulder as we passed Swersky's desk. Lieu responded with a sympathetic "Okay", but eyed us with a quizzical look. Suspicion, I'm sure. I didn't doubt it looked odd that I was Bosco's chosen taxi, when we'd been anything but on good terms for the past year. Civil terms, maybe, but that's about it.

So why I was trailing him out the door to act as an accomplice in his "revenge-for-my-partner" mission, I wasn't exactly sure. I had a lingering hint in the back of my brain, though, and it was a reason I'd never say aloud. The crime itself had hit pretty close to home, so I assumed maybe that helped to power my feet in walking, or my hand to turn the ignition and drive to 42nd, but it wasn't entirely my incentive.

Part of me had always adored Bosco. It wasn't love, though. But had I ever loved someone before, besides my sister, I might have had a better idea. Either way, he'd made sure I knew that if you love someone, you don't use them, blame them and shoot the person they care about. So instead, I just considered it a combination of admiration and jealousy. I'd always been envious of his partnership with Yokas, and I don't doubt anything resentful I'd done two years ago was a blatant attempt to divide the two. At one point, I thought I'd succeeded. But it was when they reunited even stronger that I realized it would take more than my bitter words and an Anti-crime unit to drive them away from each other.

They had something I'd never experienced – a bond.

Someone to love and someone to love you back.

Someone to live, die or kill for.

When Bosco was nearly killed that night at Mercy, I suddenly didn't find myself competing anymore. And when I found myself planting evidence and bunking in Rikers for a night, it wasn't because I "don't rat out cops". It was me attempting to salvage the only real relationship I'd ever witnessed; and maybe it was mixed with a bit of profound idolization for what they held.

So I guess I was doing the same thing as I braked in front of the redbrick apartment complex on 42nd.

---------------------------------------------------

With each heavy, hasty step, I surveyed the sidewalks, balconies and windows for any sign of a witness, or witnesses. I'd seen none as I sprinted from the alley near 42nd, but I was nervous as I approached a busier street.
They say when you really need to, you can find the strength enough to 'lift a car off a baby'. I just prayed the same would apply in the form of speed before I ran into some tourist, their face sporting a perplexed expression, inquiring about why I was frantically fleeing down the street, my clothes sodden with blood – as if they'd never seen such a sight in New York City. There was a worse scenario, however, and that was why I remained on the lookout for any idling RMPs that might happen to be the present home of a bored cop.

My mind still seemed to be caught in an ever-increasing fog as I slowly neared closer to my apartment. Despite the number of skels I'd pursued, running miles and miles at top speed was still an extreme challenge. I really had little idea how far we'd driven out of our precinct, but if I'd asked my legs as they finally brought me up to the entrance to my apartment complex, they'd have begged to say thousands of miles. My head would've probably agreed had it not been for the invasion of the Battle of Bunker Hill that was being fought in place of my brain.

I gripped the door tightly, letting it assume much of my weight, and then looked at the discouraging flights of stairs looming ahead of me, as if challenging me to even try and make it to my apartment. It was a disheartening feeling, and it reminded of when I'd thought of where I must have been when the attack occurred – working the desk at the House. Answering an occasional phone ring, arguing with Swersky, and expressing my elation for getting back on the streets the next day to any passing cop that would listen. And completely unaware of what was happening to her.

I reached for the banister and with a heave of my chest, began to trudge up the stairs, expending the last of my energy. But I couldn't shake the thought, as I struggled up each step, that had we been together in 55-David – it never would've happened.

---------------------------------------------------------

I lowered the radio from my lips, relieved that he hadn't waited around to confirm whether or not I'd actually called it in. But he'd been so frantic that he also hadn't considered how difficult it would be for me to explain why I was hovering over a body in some deserted alley, miles outside our precinct.

The sun had nearly completely disappeared as I stood there; his footsteps crunching on the alley sand becoming less and less audible. I turned and watched him round a distant corner and vanish before I took one last wistful glance at the lifeless heap that lay a few feet before me, then swiped Bosco's fingerprint-laced baton from the ground and took off toward the car in the opposite direction.

I may have been dishonest and deceitful. I may have cut corners; been insubordinate. But as I slid into the driver's seat, turned the ignition and peeled away from 42nd, I was all of those things and an accessory to murder.

----------------------------------------------------

The afternoon had come and gone and even when the digital alarm clock perched on his TV revealed 7:15, I still found myself doing the same thing I'd started doing just a half hour after he'd left.

Cleaning.

There wasn't even anything to clean - the place was uncommonly neat and orderly. So I just paced around, arranging and rearranging things that were already okay in their place; sweeping and dusting where the floor was already spotless. It was a nervous habit, really. Dwelling on the cleanliness of an apartment was a much less daunting task than sitting and reflecting on the preceding night.

For the most part, rushing around and making sure everything was immaculate did help to keep my mind from going astray; from reverting to its unsettling flashbacks. But I knew that as soon as I lay down, the memories would come back to violently haunt me. It was that realization that periodically drove me to frustrated tears.

I passed the window for the fifth time on my in-depth search for something – anything - that might happen to be out of place. Looking through the blinds, I noticed the sun had nearly completely disappeared, replacing the sky with nothing but a charcoal grey. I shivered and promptly sought out more lighting; a desk light, a table lamp, the bathroom light. I found myself flicking them all on, and silently praying Bosco had really been able to get off early as he'd promised. The last way I wanted to be, especially as the day faded into the night, was alone.

Once I'd successfully lit the entire apartment up in an artificial glow, I crept back to my own self-instated job of maid duties. I noticed a frame perched on one of his unused speakers, cradled into a corner. It was the first item I'd discovered that showed any trace of dust, indicating it had sat in its spot for quite some time. Thinking back, I did remember catching it out of the corner of my eye, but not once had I come over and picked it up for a closer look as I was doing now. I turned it over in my hand, running my finger over the black wood frame and over the glass, revealing a photograph beneath the thin layer of settled soot-like dust.

It didn't take me long to recognize. It was a picture Sully had snapped of Bosco and I perched on barstools inside of Haggerty's, and I could tell from the shirt I was wearing that the photo was at least five years old. Bosco had two fingers held up behind my head, and I was rolling my eyes because I'd suspected he'd do something immature to ruin the potentially normal picture. Ty was behind us, stretching his head into the camera's view, and laughing. A part of Sully's finger must have slipped into the path of the lens, because a white glare covered most of the upper right corner.

I couldn't help but smile at our comical expressions, and for a minute it helped to alleviate the pain that lingered inside my head. What I was most amused by was the fact that Bosco had taken the time to put the picture in a frame and set it up. Especially because, noticing the walls, it was the one of the very, very few pictures he even had framed.

-------------------------------------------------

My breaths were ragged as I burst loudly into my apartment, effete from my run. I ignored her burning stare and stumbled into the bathroom, collapsing onto my knees on the cold tile.

---------------------------------------------------

I was still clutching the picture frame when he burst through the door, panting loudly. My plans of commenting on the photograph were interrupted when I turned and caught sight of him limping his way into the bathroom; his shirt clinging to his back and saturated with sweat. I stood for nearly an entire minute, in shock I assume, trying to make sense of the situation, before I dropped the frame to the floor and rushed after him.

The water was running loudly into the tub when I got to the bathroom door, and the hot water had steam billowing from the faucet and into his face. He was sitting in what looked liked a very uncomfortable, disoriented position. His arms were languidly draped over the side of the shower's edge, one leg beneath him, and the other splayed across the floor and encased in soaked jeans. I tenderly stepped forward, kneeling in front of him. A sick feeling gathered in the pit of my stomach as I placed a hand on his still-heaving chest, and then pulled it back. Blood stained my palm, my fingers – my entire hand and wrist. It was then that I realized he must be injured – and I panicked. I panicked just like I'd done three years earlier when the psycho McKinley had shot him; at Mercy when he'd been shot, or like every other time I thought he'd been wounded. Just completely lost it. I forgot what had happened to me, and forgot why I was even there with him.

I forgot every single thing there was to remember, and started to cry.

I ran my hands under his drenched t-shirt, peeling the article from his skin and over his head, leaving it to drown on the floor in a shallow smear of blood. He only gazed at me wistfully as I continued to slide my hands down his shoulders, chest, and over his skin - searching for bullet hole, a knife wound, anything.

Having found no evidence of injury, I looked up at him and clasped my hands around his jaw, wiping away beads of sweat with my finger, and willing words from his mouth.

Talk. Please. Say something!

I needed him to speak, to say something. His glazed eyes looked nearly as soulless as they did that evening at the hospital, when I'd desperately tried to revive him; and the way he was staring vacantly ahead made me feel he was going to lose consciousness at any minute.

"Not mine," he finally breathed, hanging his hands beneath the running water. "It's not mine."

There was dark spatter on the legs of his jeans – hundreds of tiny droplets, soaked into the denim. His sneakers were covered in red just the same, and my handprints had made smears in the diluted red that coated his chest. Yet there was no wound. No gunshot, no stab entrance. Nothing.

I began to open my mouth and question his words, but put two and two together before I could finish, and then collapsed into his lap in a conflicting mix of relief and worry.

------------------------------------------------------