For the Record- cheride

Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction for entertainment purposes only. The characters and concepts of Hardcastle & McCormick do not belong to me, but to their creators.

Rating: PG

Author's Notes: In just about every series you could think of, there are one or two pivotal episodes that stick in viewers' minds. They define the characters, and serve to remind fans why they watch.

For Hardcastle and McCormick, one such episode was "The Birthday Present", where we see the young hero forced into killing the bad guy, and then we discover that this inescapable act has ripped into our hero's soul, leaving him forever changed. These are the moments in canon that fanfic writers live for, because there's just so much more.

So, I tip my hat to Stephen J. Cannell—really, for so many things, but this episode in particular. And, I offer sincere thanks to L.M. Lewis, who has already created quite a moving saga surrounding the aftermath of Weed Randall. She invited me into that world, and encouraged me to add a few thoughts of my own. Also, she sat through multiple incarnations of this tale to help me find the one I was happy with, and then—on top of everything else—loaned me Detective Wilkes. Come to think of it, 'thank you' probably isn't enough, but maybe it will suffice until I figure out a way to send her a virtual jelly donut.

As I was riding up the elevator, I wondered just which argument I'd hear first: the one about not wanting to leave him alone, or the one about having already said everything there was to say.

So, as I made my way down the hallway, I worked out some arguments of my own. They would start with 'He's in good hands', and 'There's nothing you can do but watch him sleep, anyway', then move on to, 'Any change of scenery would probably do you good'. God forbid I actually had to get to, 'A man is dead; questions have to be asked'.

I walked into Hardcastle's room prepared, and exchanged greetings with the young man sitting at the bedside. After an update on the judge's condition, I broached the subject of my visit.

"I need you to come with me, Mark."

He just nodded, took a long look at the man sleeping in the bed, then said, "I know."

After all my preparations, that surprised me, but not nearly as much as the next whispered words as he rounded the bed to join me.

"Can we do it without the cuffs?"

"What?" I studied his face, convinced he must be joking, but McCormick looked anything but amused.

He gave a small shrug, and said, "I know there's rules, though, so . . ." The tone was flat, empty, resigned.

I shook my head once, feeling that I'd missed something important, and started again. "Mark, I just need you to come down to the station and give your statement. What the hell are you talking about?"

He blinked, and looked like he'd maybe missed something important himself. "You're not here to take me in?"

"You mean arrest you? Hell, no! Jeez, Mark, where do you get some of these ideas?"

He shrugged again, though he didn't seem quite so tense this time. "I dunno, Frank, just seemed reasonable. I killed a guy yesterday, you know. And I'm on parole." After a second, he added, "And I stole a car. I just figured somebody sent you after me."

Jeez, where to start?

"No, no one sent me after you; we just need to make this a little more formal than it's been, get it taken care of. It's not cuz you're on parole." I lowered my voice. "And it's not because of the car. I told you I took care of that, so let that part go."

And then the young man smiled just a little bit. Really, not much, and it didn't come close to his eyes, but at least he was trying to pull himself out of whatever hell he'd put himself into.

"Yeah," he said, "you did tell me. Thanks."

"So can we go and get this taken care of?" I prompted.

And, finally, McCormick hesitated, looking behind him uncertainly at Hardcastle.

"He's in good hands," I began.

00000

I was mostly quiet as Frank drove us to the station. Really, though, what was there to talk about? I certainly didn't have anything to say, and nothing he could say was going to make anything any better. No words of reassurance were going to guarantee that Hardcastle would be okay, and no words of comfort were going to change the fact that a guy had died at my hands.

And, besides, I was still pretty stunned by the idea that this trip didn't have a more custodial aspect to it. Not that I was exactly going along willingly; it sure as hell wouldn't have been my first choice. But there was nothing to be gained by being stubborn with the cops, and even less by putting Frank in a no-win situation between me and them.

And he's not one of them?

I thought about that a minute. He was the one who came and pulled me out of that nightmare scene at the motel, and took me back to the nightmare where I needed to be, at the hospital. And, he did fix things with that doctor who owned the 'Vette I had borrowed. I chanced a glance over at the other side of the car, and caught Frank looking back at me, nothing but concern on his face. Was he one of them?

Not entirely, I decided.

I stared at the building looming as we pulled into the parking lot. As many times as I'd been here with the judge, I wondered if anyone knew the way the place really still creeped me out.

Harper put the car into park and shut off the engine. "Okay, Mark, let's take care of this thing."

I hesitated, but I didn't look back at him. "I really don't want to end up stayin' here, Frank," I told him quietly. Then I crawled out of the car before he had a chance to tell me any lies.

00000

Mark hadn't said a word since we'd left the car. Hell, he'd barely said ten words since we left the hospital. And what was with his stubborn idea that he was gonna end up in a cell behind this whole thing? Not that the situation wasn't a little sticky, but I wished he wouldn't be so quick to assume the worst.

I studied him for a moment, staying silent myself. He was almost rigid as he sat across the table from me in the small interrogation room, and his face was blank and cold. This was a Mark McCormick I had never seen before, and, to tell the truth, I didn't like it very much.

"Mark? You okay over there?" I winced a little; that had been a fairly pointless question. Clearly, he was not okay. But he seemed to take it at face value, and answered automatically.

"Sure, Frank, I'm fine." He looked around the room, his eyes lingering on the microphone, recorder, and steno machine.

"It's gonna be all right," I assured him.

He looked back at me, and for a split-second was almost hopeful. "Promise?"

I didn't mean to hesitate, but, dammit, no matter what anybody says, sometimes the system just doesn't work the way it should. If anyone should know that, it's McCormick.

"There's no reason it shouldn't," I finally hedged.

The kid almost smiled at that; he's always had a strange appreciation for my realistic approach to things. But then the door opened and Mark's face immediately went blank again as he watched the other detective enter the room, followed by the stenographer.

I hoped my grimace wasn't too visible as Detective Wilkes took his place next to me. I would've preferred Detective Riley; he was the officer of record on the case. And, he seemed just a little more amenable to the idea that McCormick really wasn't the bad guy here. But at least Wilkes had agreed to let me do the talking.

"You remember Detective Wilkes?" I began.

"Sure," Mark answered evenly.

I might've felt better if I thought he was hiding his emotions, but mostly it seemed there was simply nothing to hide. The kid had pretty much shut down completely now; there was a wall around him. I was hit with the idea that if I spent some time looking through his file, this was probably the face I'd see in the mug shots. I didn't know how to change that, so I plunged ahead.

"Mark, you probably know how this works, but I'm not going to ask you a lot of questions. It would be best if you just take us through what happened. We'll stop you if we need more information about anything in particular, okay?"

He nodded once, and I continued my explanation. "And, of course, we'll be recording everything, both on tape and with the steno."

I watched McCormick fold his hands together in front of him, striving for nonchalance, probably. The first signs of white in his knuckles gave him away. But he looked back at me without hesitation.

"I know the drill . . . Lieutenant."

Yeah, there was a wall, all right. And apparently, cops belonged on the other side.

I motioned to Wilkes, and he pushed the microphone into the middle of the table, then started the tape. I took care of all the preliminaries: name, date, location, case number. Wilkes identified himself for the record. I asked the respondent to state his name, address, and occupation, and Mark answered. I gave McCormick the official statement about his right to have counsel present during this conversation; he politely declined, never mentioning that his counsel of choice was lying in a semi-conscious state twenty miles away.

Finally came the bit about the statement being offered voluntarily and the respondent giving consent for the tape recording. Mark spit out the proper responses almost before I finished the questions. Sometimes I forget how experienced he is at this sort of thing.

"Mr. McCormick," I began, hoping no one had noticed the weary sigh, "just to clarify, for the record, you do not deny fatally shooting Weed Randall?"

"I do not."

"And is it your claim that you fired in self-defense?"

"Not exactly, no."

I held my breath, willing him to remember the words I must've said to him at least half a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours or so. Defense of others, dammit.

He finally continued, "It was more like . . . defending someone else." I let out my breath as Mark added, "Randall was threatening to kill Sand—uh, Officer Knight."

I nodded, then asked the broad question. "Can you describe for us the events that led to that moment?"

"Yeah." But then he stopped. I could see in his eyes then that there really wasn't anything voluntary about this at all.

He started again, "I drove up to the motel . . . but that was after I talked to Fix; maybe I should start there? But the whole thing was because of the tape, so maybe . . . it was his birthday, dammit."

"Just tell us what happened, McCormick." Apparently Wilkes was getting antsy already.

Mark didn't even look over at the other man; he just sat, staring down at his hands, holding himself so rigid he was on the verge of trembling.

"Mark, look at me." I spoke quietly, but insistently, relying on some combination of our friendship and my official capacity in this mess to get through to him. It took a couple of seconds, but he raised his head.

"Just talk to me," I continued, dropping the official part completely, "forget all the rest of it. It's just me, okay?"

He nodded slowly, and seemed to be pulling himself together.

I tried the question again, with a bit more direction. "Starting at the courthouse, please describe the events that led to the shooting at the motel."

Mark was still holding my gaze when he began his story. "Officer Knight and I accompanied Judge Hardcastle to the courthouse for Randall's hearing. It wasn't supposed to take long, and we were going to spend the day together."

He continued in a kind of surreal calmness; anyone who didn't know him might've thought he was repeating something he'd seen on the news.

"We were sitting there like everyone else when Randall started his ramblings. I just thought the guy was crazy; never thought there was any danger. Hardcastle was getting kinda mad. Everyone else was starting to get a little uncomfortable. You could hear the whispers starting, and see people's expressions. If Randall noticed any of that, he didn't care. He just kept going on. He got louder and louder. Then all of a sudden, he had a gun. He fired, and then he ran out. I think his girl was with him. He seemed very . . . satisfied.

"Everything was crazy right then. People were running or hiding behind chairs. I went up to the judge. He . . ."

McCormick stopped again, and cleared his throat slightly. I thought the detached routine might be wearing a little thin, but he kept going.

"He was hurt bad. The ambulance came, and the paramedics were working really hard. There was a lot of blood. They wouldn't let me ride with him, so Sandy drove me to the hospital. We waited together. Neither one of us knew what to do. We were just sitting and waiting. And waiting. It seemed like a lifetime that we waited, not knowing. Sandy said we should try and do something, but I told him we just needed to pray. That seemed like the only thing we could do then, but I didn't know if it would be enough.

"Then, finally, the surgeon came. He gave me the judge's gun. I think Sandy might've been kinda upset by that. The judge was—is—really important to him. But even though the surgery was over, it didn't look good. The doctor was trying not to be blunt, and still trying not to get our hopes up. But we needed to know. When Sandy asked if Hardcastle was going to die, the doctor said 'probably'. God."

McCormick unclasped his hands long enough to raise one to cradle his forehead and rub at his temple, almost as if he rubbed long enough, or hard enough, he could erase the memories that haunted him.

"And he still might," Mark added in a voice barely above a whisper. "He's not out of the woods yet."

I heard Wilkes draw in a breath to speak, so I touched his arm to quiet him, then tried to get McCormick back on track myself. "What happened after you talked to the doctor?"

"Ah . . ." I could see Mark forcing himself to look back at me; forcing himself to finish what he had started.

"Sandy was really upset," he explained. "He took off outta the hospital. I only waited a minute or two before I went after him, but he was already in his car and pulling out of the parking lot. I caught up to him, asked him for a ride, but he was so mad . . . He kinda told me to get lost, and then he tore off.

"I wasn't really sure what to do then. They told me I couldn't see the judge for at least twenty-four hours—if ever. I needed to find Weed and—"

I held up my hand suddenly to interrupt the narrative, then motioned at Wilkes to pause the recorder. He hesitated, but then hit the button. The stenographer rested her hands.

McCormick was just watching, waiting, and wearing that same dull mask on his face. The kid seemed hopelessly lost, just waiting for the next bit of bad news. I shook my head, and offered a small smile.

"It seemed like you were drifting off-track just a little bit, Mark," I told him, hoping he was focused enough to understand. We certainly didn't need the official statement including the exact details of how he managed to go after Weed.

"Try to stick to the facts of the case, okay? We just want to know what happened when you went after Randall, nothing else. Okay?"

He thought about that a minute, then nodded. "Okay." And for just a second, a ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth, but then it was gone, and he was back behind his wall again.

I sighed and turned back to Wilkes to resume the recording, but there was a hint of suspicion painted on that face. God, this needs to be over.

I rolled my eyes slightly and gave Wilkes my best long-suffering look. "He's a little out of it," I whispered confidentially. "We don't wanna be here all day."

That seemed to satisfy the other detective, who relaxed and reached out to restart the tape.

"When you left the hospital?" I prompted Mark.

"I went back to the jail. I knew Randall had to have help gettin' a gun into the courthouse, and I knew who would know how it was done."

"Why not bring your information to us?" Wilkes had snapped out the question before I could stop him.

And, of course, it was a fair question, even though I knew Mark would never be able to explain the instinct that had been driving him.

"I don't know," McCormick answered simply, looking over at the other detective for the first time. "I guess I just . . . I don't know." He shrugged, then thought a moment.

"Maybe because the one cop who had any idea at all what had gone on went tearing off after Randall on some kinda vendetta, and I didn't have time to try and explain all of that to anybody. Maybe because—no matter what I'd said before—I just needed to do something myself. Or maybe because the idea of letting Randall get away after what he'd done to Hardcastle was just more than I could bear."

McCormick shrugged again and turned his attention back to me. "I really don't know what I was thinking, Frank," he said sadly, though I thought he'd done a better job than I would've imagined at putting into words what had been going on in his head.

"Anyway, I went to the jail and I got the information I needed. Randall was in a motel somewhere up the coast. It wasn't much to go on, but it was all I had, so I started looking. I found him."

McCormick pulled in a breath. "I pulled into the parking lot, but Sandy had beaten me there, and he was already in trouble. Weed shoved him toward the car, but Sandy wouldn't stay down, and Weed shot him. He wasn't done.

"Weed was pointing the gun at Sandy again, not worried about the idea of shooting a cop. He was going to kill him. I had the judge's gun. I hadn't even really meant to bring it; it's just that I hadn't been home yet.

"I pointed it at Weed, and told him to stop. I asked him not to make me do it. But he wouldn't put his gun down. He just looked at me, with that crazed look of his. Hell, he was almost laughing when he turned the gun back toward Sandy. He made me shoot him. I didn't want to do it, but he made me."

McCormick took another moment, and even Wilkes seemed willing to let the young man get himself together this time. I thought that anyone who'd ever had to fire a weapon at another person would understand.

Then he finished it.

"I checked on Sandy, and told someone to call the police and an ambulance. Sandy wasn't hurt too bad, and I went to check on Weed. He was . . . hurt worse. I wanted him to hold on, but I could tell he wasn't gonna be able. I was holding him, and then, finally, he recognized me, sort of. He said . . . said I looked like a guy he'd known inside. A guy named Mark."

McCormick had choked out that last little bit, then dropped his head down into his hands. I could barely make out the next whispered words.

"He said I was a funny guy. And that's the la—" his breath caught. "The last thing he said."

I heard him drag in a ragged breath before he added, "What'd I do, Frank?" Then he finally raised his head and looked back at me. "And what am I gonna do now?"

I felt my heart breaking as I looked into his eyes, and I seemed to have completely lost the 'official' part of myself.

But before I could put anything into words, I heard Wilkes mutter, "Thank you," then he hit the stop button and added, "you're free to go." He collected the stenographer with a nod and they left the room without another word.

Mark's eyes still didn't leave mine. "That's it?"

I shrugged, not much less surprised than he was, but I dragged Lieutenant Harper back into the conversation. "You told us what we needed to know. It still tracks with your earlier statements, and it fits with the statements from other witnesses." Not that I hadn't expected Wilkes to dwell on some of the details just a bit; he could be overbearing sometimes. I told myself to remember that bit about the gift horse.

And then I realized, as I looked across at his still rigid posture, the emptiness on his face, and the layer of terror hiding in his eyes; no one is that good an actor. Wilkes would've been a fool to question McCormick's sincerity about any of this. I offered a tiny smile.

"We're done here, Mark; let me drive you home."

He didn't even try to come up with an excuse; just shook his head as he rose stiffly from the chair, and said, "I need to get back to the hospital."

I could've argued, but it would've been pointless, and I figured we could both do without the aggravation. "Well, then, I'll sit with you for a while," I told him as we moved across the room.

McCormick paused at the door, looking around again.

"C'mon," I told him, wanting to get him out of this room. "This is over now; everything's going to be all right."

He nodded once, and finally returned my smile. "Thanks."

And I could see in his eyes that he almost believed me.

00000

The ride back to the hospital was a little less stressful, though I still didn't really feel like myself. I thought that might take a while.

Always the practical one, Frank had suggested we get something to eat before settling back in at the hospital, though I was pretty sure he was just trying to keep me away from there a while longer. He tried to tempt me with Burger Man, but then he didn't argue too much when I told him we should get the food to go. Frank's good about stuff like that; he doesn't push when he doesn't have to.

I thought about that as we stepped into the elevator, and thought again about how the trip to the station hadn't turned out like I'd thought it would. Especially with Wilkes there—I'd never expected him to just accept my story like that. Hell, I wasn't sure that's what I had expected from Harper.

I looked over at the detective, slouched against the opposite wall, still watching me with the same look of concern that had been on his face all day.

He's not one of them, I reminded myself.

"What?" he grumbled, after I'd been watching him for a couple of seconds. He pointed at the sack I was carrying, "I bought you extra fries."

"Yeah." I smiled a little, and tried to decide how to say what I was thinking.

I started watching the lighted numbers above the door. "Today was kind of . . . tense," I began.

"Yep."

"I hope I didn't do anything, or say anything that . . ."

"You didn't," he assured me.

"Because I wouldn't want you to think . . ."

"I don't."

Well, that hadn't been much of an apology, but he seemed to understand, anyway. But that wasn't really what I wanted to tell him. I turned back, meeting his eyes.

"Thanks for not letting me get stuck there, Frank," I said softly. "I needed to get back here."

"I know you did," he smiled gently, just as the door opened. He clapped me lightly on the back and steered me down the hallway.

"I told you everything would be okay," he reminded me.

And as we walked together toward Hardcastle's room, I finally thought maybe he was right.

Maybe.