A/N: Let me just give a warning in advance and say that, this was initially just me getting down an idea. And while, on one hand, I would love to take it further and go somewhere with it, I just don't have enough ideas to really get it going anywhere. There's still a possibility for it to be picked up somewhere down the road, but I only have two chapters planned out for now.

The car door slammed closed behind him as he headed towards the roped off crime scene, easily bypassing the neon yellow tape that could be seen from down the road.

The area was pretty desolated and empty, but... not nearly as isolated as he thought it would be. There was a fairly used backroad just ten yards from it and, while most people these days tried to avoid any kind of unpopulated road, that didn't make it abandoned by any means. From what he could tell from a distance and from what he already knew about the area, there was nothing here that could be used to hide a body. It was flat land with barely any vegetation growing on it... it couldn't even hide the empty cans that were littered all over the place.

And that told him enough of what he needed to know about the case so far.

The brief chill in the air hinted at rain again and he wasn't surprised. It seemed like whenever something bad had happened or was going to happen, it would rain- like it was trying to send some kind of warning to them. And that maybe they would do well to pay closer attention to it.

The scene had already been delicately covered on the off-chance the weather did decide to downpour on it at any given moment. So there wasn't much that could actually be seen from a distance.

But... he knew what he was going to find underneath the weighed down blue tarps.

"Detective!"

Sebastian looked up at the call and watched as one of the on-duty officers hurried over to him. He already knew what the man was going to say, so he considered ignoring him, but... decided against it.

The officer would only be trying to do his job after all.

"You're not... you're not supposed to be here." the man, Officer Roland, started, stumbling briefly through his sentence as he stopped to catch his breath. Judging from his tired expression and the slight disarray of his uniform, he figured the officer had been doing around-the-clock patrol on the scene for the past day or so. Most of the KPD officers were still tied up dealing with Beacon and the extensive mess that came with it, so he wasn't surprised that some officers had to do back-to-back shifts.

"Then you shouldn't have told me you found her." Sebastian replied, as he pulled on the collar of his trench coat to cut out some of the chill.

Office Roland gave out an exhausted sigh and pushed his fingers through his short hair. "I know, but... well, we had to tell you. The department's been in knots since Beacon and her disappearance only made it worse... and now we have this..." his voice trailed for a moment before he decided to straighten himself up and recompose himself. "And, I know you want to get to the bottom of this, but the department cannot condone personal feelings getting involved."

That was one way of putting it.

"You know the rules, Detective."

He did.

And along with knowing them, he also knew how to bend and, occasionally, break them.

"Have the crime scene units been by to take photos?" he asked.

The officer seemed to hesitate briefly, as though questioning whether it was within protocol to answer him. But it didn't take him long to consider that there would be no harm done in doing so- after all, he would just be answering a few harmless questions. "They took some photos a few hours ago, but they were called out to another case and had to cut short." Roland answered.

"What about Detective Martinez? Has he been notified? Or Detective Bryant for that matter?" Sebastian continued.

The officer remained quiet this time.

The KPD had called in a few Detectives from the surrounding cities to assist with the endlessly occurring murders at first, but had then kept them around to deal with Beacon once it followed shortly after. Both he and Joseph had been barred from working on the case due to their involvement with it, which was within protocol to do. And, in some way, that was just fine with him.

He had no intentions of going back to that place.

For now at least.

"So you have a scene that's been here for a day with little to no work being done on it?" he pressed, watching now as the officer seemed almost tense at the new line of questioning. And part of him hated to have to put the guy through it, but he needed to do this. "One of our officers was found here, my rookie Detective was found here, and you're okay with letting the scene just sit here unanswered?"

"Okay, okay." the officer finally interrupted, sounding utterly defeated now as he briefly raised his hands in a truce. "You're right. As of right now, this scene is for a case of emergency and technically we are all personally involved in this matter. And... every other Detective in this city can't be here right now and... at this point, we're desperate enough to... bend a few rules if needed be."

"And you called me because you knew I was the only qualified one who would show."

Roland nodded once more in defeat, almost willing now to give up his previous stance.

"Good, now let's stop wasting time."

"Alright then... let's get to work." the man spoke as he ushered him to follow him over to where the blue tarp was slightly blowing with the cold breeze. The slightly damp grass was crushed easily underneath them as they walked the remaining yards to the scene. "The weather reports are saying rain later this night, so it'd be wise if we could get this cleared up before then."

He watched as the officer stooped down and moved one of the small weighs before he grabbed the corner of the tarp and lifted it up.

The grass was still matted down from the weight of her body, giving only a brief outline of how she had been positioned. There was blood all over the place... but something wasn't right...

He knew next to nothing about this case other than that someone wanted her dead... and the only culprit he could think of was someone within her own company. There was no way she'd let herself get taken out like this, not this easily by some unknown assailant. Not to mention, the last he saw of her was when she was leaving with them.

But this... even this seemed far too sloppy for them.

This company, whoever they were, was able to orchestrate an entire recreation of STEM and leave without a single trace... and yet, somehow they couldn't even properly dispose of her.

Something was wrong here... something was missing.

He tried to think back on everything he knew so far.

(flashback)

He watched as his partner slowly peeled the small bandage off of his shoulder, wincing briefly at the motion before he tossed it into the trash can nearby. The cluster of stitches that had held his bullet wound closed were still red and somewhat raw-looking. And he watched as Joseph lightly touched around the area- he guessed to test the hold of the stitching since a few of them had already popped loose.

It had been almost two weeks now since he was discharge from the hospital and, while the stitches on his abdomen had healed up just fine, his shoulder was proving to be a bigger issue.

He had been staying with him for most of the two weeks, making sure he was recovering from both STEM and the extended hospital stay. And, asides from the occasional exhaustion and minor side effects from the prescribed medication, he was doing well- at least better than he thought he would.

"You're not going to pass out again, are you?" Sebastian asked, watching as he started the tedious process of cleaning the stitches.

Joseph shot him a brief exasperated look before he went back to focusing on himself. "That was one time." he retorted.

"Still pretty funny though."

His partner shook his head and briefly leaned back in his chair, careful to avoid contact with the stitches on his back just as well. The ones on the back of his shoulder were probably doing even worse. "Yeah, I'm sure it is considering I don't see you with two gunshot wounds."

"And thank God for that." Sebastian remarked, watching as he went about his business. He had originally offered to help with cleaning them, but after a few frustrating attempts and one accidental popped stitch... he decided it was probably best for Joseph to handle them himself. He seemed more in control and knew more about first aid anyways. The sound of his cellphone going off next to him caught him off-guard and he picked it up just enough to see who the calling number was- he didn't know anyone who would be calling him this late at night. And he briefly cursed under his breath when he recognized it. "What the hell do they want now?"

"Work?" Joseph asked, although his tone suggested that he didn't really need to question it.

"Unfortunately." he nodded, before he reluctantly picked it up to answer. "Yeah?"

And he heard the other man give an annoyed sigh as though to air his disappointment with his less-than-professional answer.

"Detective Castellanos, we... uh, we found Kidman."

He nearly dropped his phone at the response.

There was something about the tone in the officer's voice and the way the man worded his sentence... something about it tipped him off. And something told him that he wasn't going to like what came next. He kept a calm demeanor and, before he could even reply, he heard Joseph mutter a brief curse before he pushed himself to his feet. Judging by the way he started out of the room, he could only guess he had managed to make his stitches bleed again- which wasn't uncommon. It seemed to be timed perfectly though and he waited until his partner was out of the room and well into the next before he finally spoke; the words were difficult to force out. "... What do you mean 'found?'"

"A runner found her just on the outskirts of the city." the officer continued.

And he knew that he was right before- whatever was going to come next was not going to be good news.

It felt like his heart was in his throat now. "What happened?"

The small pocket of silence only made the answer worse when it came.

"... Someone put a bullet in her head."

It felt like his entire body ran cold at the words.

Christ... He hadn't been surprised to see her gone by the time they woke up in the basement of Beacon, completely unhooked from whatever that STEM-recreation machine had been. He remembered their encounter at the top of the lighthouse, how they kept their guns trained on one another. Neither of them were willing to take the shot, but were prepared to if it was necessary. She had tried to explain the issue, but gave up on her own accord; she had insisted that he wouldn't understand anyways and he'd be better off if he didn't know. But he knew enough to know that she was behind all of this.

She was responsible for them being dragged into this mess and he needed to see that she was held accountable for that.

But he also remembered her silently gesturing for him to hide his sense of consciousness when he woke up not long after that final battle against Ruvik. He had spotted a few people in the background behind her and heard her speak briefly to them- urging them to hurry along and get everything packed up. And when someone had mentioned them, and mentioned something about 'removing the evidence' she assured them that it had already been done. Despite her knowledge of his revival, she lied and confirmed that there had been no survivors other than her.

As she simply put it, no one else was leaving.

He hated to admit that, while he still held some anger towards her, without her interference, their fates could've been a lot worse.

And, while he was still conflicted about how he felt overall about the situation, no matter how angry he could be at her... he never would've asked for something like this to happen.

She didn't deserve this.

The officer on the other line nervously cleared his throat as though to interrupt the tense silence. "She's at Krimson Central Hospital right now, but... the doctors aren't certain about her condition. They think she'll pull through, but we have no idea how long she's been out there. She was beaten pretty badly too, so that's proving to be a completely separate issue."

This just kept getting worse.

"How long has she been admitted?" Sebastian asked.

"An hour at most. We tried to call you as soon as we knew, but... we had to get her to the hospital first and then tape off the scene."

He nodded briefly to himself as he moved one hand to his face and tried not to think too much on the situation right now. "... Thanks. Is there... is there any other information you know of?"

"We just got Forensics called up, so they'll be coming in soon- they're on a tight schedule though, so there's no telling how long we can keep them here." the officer replied. "All we got are circumstantial guesses and conspiracy theories being passed around. A lot of the guys are pretty upset about this- obviously whoever did this wanted us to find her. I mean... at least this explains why she wasn't at Beacon with the two of you."

Right...

"Just keep me updated." He replied.

"Will do, sir."

He hung up and slowly set the phone aside. It was pretty obvious that his hands were starting to shake and he didn't bother trying to stop them. It was a lot to deal with at one time, but... he found himself hung up on what the officer had said right towards the end. That her being found like this would explain her absence, that, whoever was involved in the Beacon case, had taken her with them and left the two of them behind. And the longer he thought on that, the more convinced he felt that her company had to have been the one to pull the trigger.

But why?

Were they that pissed that the two of them had walked away? But, if that was the case, then why wait two weeks to have her killed? The Beacon case had been all over the news the moment the first camera showed up at the asylum- and God knows their pictures had been plastered over every single report. If they were really pissed off at her antics, then she would've been dead within two days following the incident.

"What did they want?"

The question caught him by surprise and he looked up in time to see Joseph walk back into the room, a new bandage on his shoulder and a water bottle in one hand. He must've just gone ahead and finished what he needed to do in the other room so he wouldn't interrupt his conversation. And for that, he was partly thankful.

"They're not trying to set up another interrogation, are they?"

Sebastian gave out a sigh and leaned back as he pushed his fingers through his hair. "I wish."

The brief silence from the other man told him that he already knew something was wrong, which was probably just based on the way he acted- and it wasn't like he was really trying all that hard to hide it.

"... What happened?" Joseph finally pressed.

It wasn't that he was reluctant to tell the man what was going on- he just wasn't sure what his reaction might be. Despite previously being in the hospital healing from a gunshot wound that she gave him, Joseph had hardly said a word about his thoughts on the situation. He had showed concern about her well-being after her absence had been noted, but... he never talked about the bullet. Most people, as he would believe, would've been pissed at the prospect of being shot by someone they knew, someone they worked with, but Joseph never mentioned it.

Not even when he pressed the man on the subject.

"They found Kidman." Sebastian replied, watching as his partner seemed to still at the answer. "And, right now, she's at the hospital with a bullet in her head."

The water bottle dropped from his hand and barely bounced once when it hit the ground, before it rolled off. He didn't immediately show any other physical reaction to the news and he guessed that some part of him had always assumed that... something like this was likely to happen.

"... Who would've done that?"

"I don't know." Sebastian answered, before he got to his feet. "The only person who does know, is her..."

Sebastian heard his phone go off and pushed himself to his feet as he fished it out of his pocket.

One look at the caller ID told him to answer it.

"You find anything out?" he asked.

"A few things." Joseph answered. "She's been out of surgery since four this morning and they've got her listed as being in critical condition, but she's been stable for a few hours now- which is good news considering everything that's happened. The doctors have her in an induced coma for now to monitor any brain swelling and to try to reduce any resulting pressure build up. It should help alleviate some of the potential damages done, but... right now they're not sure how extensive the damages are. For now, it doesn't seem like it's as bad as they thought it would be, but it's been less than twenty-four hours, so it's still possible for something to show up."

Sebastian gave out a sigh and briefly turned at the sound of another squad car pulling up to the scene; more than likely, it was just here to drop off officers for the new shift and take the previous ones back to the precinct. "If that's the case then, it sounds like she wasn't out here for too long before that runner found her."

"Which is a good thing." he added. "A few hours makes all the difference with an injury like this."

Right.

"She's alive for now and that's all that matters." Sebastian reminded. "... What about the rest of her? The guys on-scene said it was bad."

Joseph sighed briefly on the other end of the phone. "To say that she was beaten pretty badly is an understatement from what I've gathered." and he knew he wasn't going to like what was going to come next. "The doctors are trying to hold off on any non-emergency surgery until the swelling goes down, but they've already had to do two minor surgeries to deal with internal bleeding and her liver on the verge of rupturing. Luckily they caught it in time, but it's still too early to tell what else could be wrong. She's also going to need metal pins in her collarbone and in her left arm, but that's all I've managed to gather so far."

"Fuck."

"Again, she's stable for the time being, so... for now, the odds are on her side."

The issue here was keeping them on her side.

Sebastian briefly brushed his fingers through his hair and watched as the rotating shift of officers stood around the parked vehicle and conversed for a short while. It was a lot of information to take in right now, especially since he still had a lot of questions about her condition. And it was only when he was running over the information did something finally stick out to him. "How exactly did you find all of that out?"

It wasn't the most important thing to ask, but... he highly doubted the doctors would willingly tell Joseph about her condition.

Sure, she was involved in the Beacon case and was now in a new case herself, but the hospital was stingy with giving out information and usually only gave them the bare minimum; which was usually a yes or a no to whether their victim was alive.

"That's what you're concerned with right now?"

The almost sharp tone in his partner's voice told him that the information was either not willingly given away or... not ethically given away.

"Look, the last thing I need to worry about is you getting in trouble for hacking their medical records or something." he spoke, pausing briefly before he continued. "... You didn't hack into their system, did you?"

"What? No, there's no way I would've had the equipment to do that even if I wanted to- not that I know how to." Joseph quickly objected. "And I find it offensive that you think I would know how to and that I would use it to break into case-sensitive medical files."

He probably could've called him out on it and possibly end up uncovering something else about the man, but he decided against it for now. "Well, you know how to defuse bombs, so I figured there was probably something else up your sleeves."

"First off, those aren't even in the same skill set; secondly, I thought we agreed to drop the defusing bombs topic."

Right.

"Alright, fine, then how did you get the information? Because I find it hard to believe that the doctors would've willingly told you confidential medical information like that without her knowledge and without you being family."

There was a brief pocket of silence before it was punctured by an audible sigh of defeat. "Fine, not that I understand why you're so desperate to know about this, but I'll tell you. Just let me say ahead of time that I'm not necessarily proud of this, but... we needed to know if she was going to make it or not."

Sebastian couldn't help but pick up on the genuine concern in his voice right at the end. Joseph had assured him earlier that he would try and get whatever information he could from the hospital, but he didn't think the man would be able to get much. Yet, everything he had told him just now was beyond anything he expected- which wasn't much. It just left him wondering just how far his partner's concern had taken him in getting an answer.

"While I was waiting to see if a doctor could get back to me, one of the nurses who had helped tend to my injuries before walked in and came over. She asked the basic questions about how I was doing and I told her that asides from the stitches being an issue from time to time, everything was fine. She made the offer to take a look at them and see if there was anything she could do about the issue. And I figured if I played my cards right, then she might know something about what was going on with Kidman. So, while she was busy looking for a free room, I... may have popped some of the stitches out."

He had to take a moment to fully comprehend what the man was saying and, when it did click, he had to admit he was surprised. "So... on the off-change that you might get some information, you ripped your stitches out and made your barely-healing injury worse?"

"I didn't rip them out... per say." Joseph corrected. "Listen, it doesn't matter now, because it worked alright?"

"You couldn't have just flirted with her and made it easier on yourself?" Sebastian asked, hearing the man audibly groan on the other end. "Or is that how you still got the information? Because some of those nurses were pretty infatuated-"

"No, that's not what happened." he quickly interrupted. "She was talking with some of the other nurses about it and felt bad that Kidman's disappearance case had to end like this. She also knew that Kidman was a part of our team and since she was on-hand yesterday, she was aware of what was going on and just wanted to keep me updated on what was happening with her so far." he paused briefly before he continued. "Like I said, it's not a lot of information, but it's more than what we had before- and it's more than what we could've had. She'll be in the ICU for awhile and the hospital's stingy with visitors, but we might still be able to slip in once the doctors are confident that she'll remain stable."

Sebastian gave out a sigh and watched as the squad cars finally pulled off of the curb and disappeared down the road. God knows how long the officers had been sitting around talking instead of getting to work. "Alright, well... if that's not dedication on your part, then I don't know what is."

"Do you have any information about the scene?" Joseph asked.

Good, a slight change of topic.

"Not a lot, unfortunately, but I can tell you that she wasn't shot here. More than likely, whoever did this committed the beating and shooting elsewhere and then dropped her off here." he answered, making sure to drop his voice slightly as the new shift of officers were starting to walk around and do their perimeter checks. "It seems like they wanted her to be found, but... I don't think they were expecting her to be found alive."

"Sounds like a serious misstep." Joseph spoke. "... Which doesn't fit the situation."

"Exactly." Sebastian nodded. "Which makes me think there's more to this story."

"There's always more." he reminded. "Anything else noticeable at the scene?"

He shrugged briefly at the question. "Not really. There's blood evidence and some tire tracks, but I can assure you that we'll never be able to match them to any vehicle. This case was intended to be an open and shut incident... and you know she won't say a thing when she wakes up."

"... No, of course not."

The man sounded disappointed.

Sebastian sighed once more and glanced at his watch, already noticing the late hour. "It's getting late, you should head home."

"I'm going to make a quick stop by the office before I do, there's something I want to look at."

There was always something Joseph had to do or something he had to look at. "I'm serious. You just got new stitches put in and technically I shouldn't be letting you drive around with all that medication you're on- whatever's at the office can wait." he replied.

"How long are you going to stay at the scene?" Joseph asked.

"Probably another hour, but don't change the subject-"

"I'll see you in an hour then."