It's three in the morning. He should be asleep right now. He wants to be asleep right now. He can't sleep right now.

His eyes are dry and stinging. He adjusts his grip on the steering wheels and blinks. The road is dark and empty ahead of him, the only noise the hum of his engine. It feels like the end on the world, and he's all that's left.

He doesn't know where he's driving, doesn't much care. He just couldn't sit at his desk anymore, reading file after file, looking at crime after crime. He knows he should be used to the violence and the gore by now. As head detective, he's been investigating the filth of the world for over two decades. But on some nights, he can't ignore it anymore. The smell is the worst. The decay, the nauseating scent of barely dried blood. The smells permeate the air, searing themselves into his nose. He can still smell the bodies when their gone.

It's three in the morning. He should have forgotten by now. He wants to have forgotten by now. He hasn't forgotten by now.

It isn't every night; just a few times a month. The memories crawl out of the hole he hid them in and keep him from sleep with threats of dreams worse than reality. It's part of the reason Victoria left him, he knows. She wanted him to Let me in, Carlton. Please, I want to help. but he couldn't – wouldn't – do that to her. Didn't want her to know about pretty girls missing half their faces or promising young men who lost their futures to a junkie on the street. He wished he didn't know about them most of the time.

It's three in the morning. He can't sleep because he can't forget.

A/N: So, this is just something that popped in my head and wouldn't leave me alone. I own nothing and am but a fan. Read and review, folks.

To anyone who reads my other story, I promise I'm still writing it. This chapter has been like pulling teeth, though, and school is keeping my busy. I'm not dead, though, I promise!